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WoW as Free to Play in the model of Hearthstone
The official notes have been updated once again, however, some of the changes highlighted on the official site are from the update 2 days ago, see the list below for the real changes.
Death Knight (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)Frost
- Hungering Cold now has a 1.5-second cast time.
Glyphs
- Glyph of Dark Succor has been redesigned. Rather than placing a 15% maximum health floor on Death Strike healing while in Frost or Unholy Presence, it causes the next Death Strike within 15 seconds after killing a foe that yields experience or Honor Points to heal for at least 20% of the death knight's maximum health.
Druid (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)Feral
- Bear damage abilities were scaling too fast with higher gear levels compared to other tanks, so the following balance changes have been made. All the numbers cited are for level 85 characters; numbers will be lower for lower-level characters.
- Faerie Fire (Feral) base damage has been raised to 2950, up from 679. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 10.8%, down from 15%.
- Maul base damage has been raised to 35, up from 8. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 19%, down from 26.4%.
- Pulverize weapon damage percent has been decreased to 60%, down from 80%. Damage per Lacerate application has been increased to 1623, up from 361.
- Mangle (Bear) weapon damage percent has been decreased to 190%, down from 260%. Bonus damage has been increased to 3306, down from 754.
- Swipe base damage has been increased to 929, up from 215. Attack power scaling has been decreased to 12.3%, down from 17.1%.
- Thrash initial base damage has been increased to 1464, up from 339. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 13.8%, down from 19.2%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 816, up from 189. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 2.35%, down from 3.26%.
- Lacerate initial base damage has been increased to 3608, up from 2089. Initial damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 5.52%, down from 7.66%. Periodic base damage has been increased to 69, up from 16. Periodic damage attack power scaling has been decreased to 0.369%, down from 0.512%.
- Natural Reaction damage reduction has been increased to 9/18%, up from 6/12%.
Paladin (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)Protection
- Guarded By The Light no longer interacts with Holy Shield in any way.
- Holy Shield has been redesigned. This talent is now an activated ability off the global cooldown. It grants 20% increased block amount to a paladin's shield blocks for 10 seconds, with a 30-second cooldown.
Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)- Cloak of Shadows cooldown is now 2 minutes, up from 90 seconds. In addition, Cloak of Shadows is no longer on the global cooldown.
- Combat Readiness and Cloak of Shadows now share a cooldown.
Assassination
- Assassin's Resolve damage bonus has been increased to 20%, up from 15%.
- Vile Poisons now increases poison damage by 12/24/36%, up from 7/14/20%.
Combat
- Savage Combat now increases attack power by 3/6%, up from 2/4%.
- Vitality now increases attack power by 30%, up from 25%.
Subtlety
- Elusiveness now reduces the cooldown of Cloak of Shadows by 15/30 seconds, up from 10/20, and now also reduces the cooldown of Combat Readiness by 15/30 seconds.
- Sanguinary Vein damage to bleeding targets has been increased to 8/16%, from 5/10%.
Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)- Fire Nova damage has been increased by 15%.
Elemental
- Call of Flame now also causes Fire Nova to add 3/6 seconds to the duration of Flame Shock auras on targets that Fire Nova damages.
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Raid Instance Nerf in Patch 4.2 only applies to Normal
Of course, keep in mind, the nerfs that were announced only apply to Normal. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Justice Points in "Old" Normal Raid Instance in patch 4.2
Normals will drop JP, Heroics will drop Valor. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Cataclysm Raid Difficulty Progression
I think the biggest issue now is that Cataclysm didn't launch with an intro raid tier. We're now following through with the stair-step method of having one hard raid and one intro raid, but it took a while to see the plan through -- which is obviously a bit jarring. So now we have a new tier, VP converts to JP, the old tier gets stepped down and the new hotness is going to be that difficult climb.
I think if we had the intro tier/hard tier available (as we will in 4.2) when the expansion first launched it would feel more natural now to see that stair step just moving forward. With the current setup it seems like we're the bad guys going in and messing with your stuff, and that view is somewhat based on not really including the new harder tier in the equation since it's not available yet. It's just not going to be an issue when the new content is available, but for now it's something to make observations and personal declarations about. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Firelands Difficulty
If you've completed Blackwing Descent/Bastion of Twilight then you should focus on Firelands (you're ready to step up), but if you haven't yet seen most or any of BWD/BoT we want to make sure you're able to as soon as 4.2 comes out - not spend weeks running dungeons and grabbing the new gear before you can start progressing.
The content has been out quite a while, there's no reason to make people wait and spend even more time running dungeons to grab the new gear before they can start on raid content they haven't seen yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Encounter Journal and its effect on boss difficulty
Having information on boss abilities within the game will make fights easier than alt+tabbing to a website to read literal strategies, group placements, phase descriptions, if not ways to cheese the encounter? Pardon my sarcasm, but that's amazing! And logical.
If you're cutting edge you've already seen the bosses on the PTR, you've already read the strategies before the patch is anywhere near release. What amounts to ability tooltips is not going to tell you how to beat a boss, or make you or your raid competent enough to do so.
It's a cool feature to put drop tables within the default UI, let people get some info on the bosses, and hopefully keep them from having to tab out of the game just to get (usually incorrect) boss ability info from the internets. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Making Raid Encounters Harder/Easier
Plenty of people like the challenge, but not everyone has the ability or maybe even desire to be in a guild capable of tackling it right from the get-go.
It's always been our intent to offer new raid tiers in Cataclysm that are difficult to provide challenge to the raiding guilds, and then gradually allow older content to self-nerf as people gear up through VP, and then eventual literal nerfs to the content. That's something we've been communicating for some time.
Burning Crusade swung the pendulum one way, and Wrath of the Lich King swung it back too far the other. We're attempting to find that middle ground where there's still something brutally difficult for the cutting edge, but content gradually comes down until it's extremely accessible (ie PUGable) either simply through gear proliferation, or literal content difficulty nerfs.
There's always going to be two sides of the fence, some people want things more accessible for them and that's cool, we want it to be too, and some people think it should be difficult and always be that way because that's the way they had to do it. The fact of the matter is that as an MMO the end-game bar is constantly being raised, and progression content is in general not a place where we're going to purposefully gate prestige through difficulty. There are some exceptions of course, hard modes and unlockable bosses are purposefully there to be more difficult challenges, but as a whole our intent is to create a constantly moving ramp upward for Normal difficulty raids. That has to mean that the Normal raid content that was the hardest will one day be the easiest.
You will very likely see this same happen for Firelands when the raid tier above it is released. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)
Tier 12 Bonus and Chain Heal
Chain Heal’s bounce range has already been increased about as much as the engine supports without causing odd behavior and/or undermining the purpose of the spell. It’d certainly be a better spell if it jumped 20 yards, but at that point it’s just a smart heal with a funny visual. And if it can bounce to the same player multiple times, then it’s just the best heal to use, always.
I think you're undervaluing the benefit of not consuming Riptide. That potentially amounts to a sustained 25% boost to Chain Heal’s throughput, which is huge, in addition to the healing conserved by not losing a portion of your Riptide. And while Chain Heal is easier to use efficiently in a 25-player raid, if the heal hits three targets it is quite efficient, and those situations will arise frequently in 10-player raids.
Ultimately, because healing gameplay is naturally varied (as opposed to DPS rotations for a min/max player), whenever we come up with healer set bonuses, unless they’re incredibly vanilla, they will inevitably favor some healers’ playstyles over others. And the latter group will say “but I never use, this bonus is terrible!” while a separate but less vocal group is giddy over what they’re getting. The original bonus was flawed because it really did play directly into the greatest weakness of Chain Heal in 10-player raids by requiring a 5th target to be of any use, but this bonus will be incredibly strong on 10-player Firelands encounters like Fandral, Beth’tilac, Rhyolith, and more. And on the encounters where it’s weak, Chain Heal isn’t really the right spell to use in 25-player modes anyway. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums[/)
Of course, keep in mind, the nerfs that were announced only apply to Normal. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Justice Points in "Old" Normal Raid Instance in patch 4.2
Normals will drop JP, Heroics will drop Valor. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Cataclysm Raid Difficulty Progression
I think the biggest issue now is that Cataclysm didn't launch with an intro raid tier. We're now following through with the stair-step method of having one hard raid and one intro raid, but it took a while to see the plan through -- which is obviously a bit jarring. So now we have a new tier, VP converts to JP, the old tier gets stepped down and the new hotness is going to be that difficult climb.
I think if we had the intro tier/hard tier available (as we will in 4.2) when the expansion first launched it would feel more natural now to see that stair step just moving forward. With the current setup it seems like we're the bad guys going in and messing with your stuff, and that view is somewhat based on not really including the new harder tier in the equation since it's not available yet. It's just not going to be an issue when the new content is available, but for now it's something to make observations and personal declarations about. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Firelands Difficulty
If you've completed Blackwing Descent/Bastion of Twilight then you should focus on Firelands (you're ready to step up), but if you haven't yet seen most or any of BWD/BoT we want to make sure you're able to as soon as 4.2 comes out - not spend weeks running dungeons and grabbing the new gear before you can start progressing.
The content has been out quite a while, there's no reason to make people wait and spend even more time running dungeons to grab the new gear before they can start on raid content they haven't seen yet. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Encounter Journal and its effect on boss difficulty
Having information on boss abilities within the game will make fights easier than alt+tabbing to a website to read literal strategies, group placements, phase descriptions, if not ways to cheese the encounter? Pardon my sarcasm, but that's amazing! And logical.
If you're cutting edge you've already seen the bosses on the PTR, you've already read the strategies before the patch is anywhere near release. What amounts to ability tooltips is not going to tell you how to beat a boss, or make you or your raid competent enough to do so.
It's a cool feature to put drop tables within the default UI, let people get some info on the bosses, and hopefully keep them from having to tab out of the game just to get (usually incorrect) boss ability info from the internets. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Making Raid Encounters Harder/Easier
Plenty of people like the challenge, but not everyone has the ability or maybe even desire to be in a guild capable of tackling it right from the get-go.
It's always been our intent to offer new raid tiers in Cataclysm that are difficult to provide challenge to the raiding guilds, and then gradually allow older content to self-nerf as people gear up through VP, and then eventual literal nerfs to the content. That's something we've been communicating for some time.
Burning Crusade swung the pendulum one way, and Wrath of the Lich King swung it back too far the other. We're attempting to find that middle ground where there's still something brutally difficult for the cutting edge, but content gradually comes down until it's extremely accessible (ie PUGable) either simply through gear proliferation, or literal content difficulty nerfs.
There's always going to be two sides of the fence, some people want things more accessible for them and that's cool, we want it to be too, and some people think it should be difficult and always be that way because that's the way they had to do it. The fact of the matter is that as an MMO the end-game bar is constantly being raised, and progression content is in general not a place where we're going to purposefully gate prestige through difficulty. There are some exceptions of course, hard modes and unlockable bosses are purposefully there to be more difficult challenges, but as a whole our intent is to create a constantly moving ramp upward for Normal difficulty raids. That has to mean that the Normal raid content that was the hardest will one day be the easiest.
You will very likely see this same happen for Firelands when the raid tier above it is released. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator / Skills/Talents)Tier 12 Bonus and Chain Heal
Chain Heal’s bounce range has already been increased about as much as the engine supports without causing odd behavior and/or undermining the purpose of the spell. It’d certainly be a better spell if it jumped 20 yards, but at that point it’s just a smart heal with a funny visual. And if it can bounce to the same player multiple times, then it’s just the best heal to use, always.
I think you're undervaluing the benefit of not consuming Riptide. That potentially amounts to a sustained 25% boost to Chain Heal’s throughput, which is huge, in addition to the healing conserved by not losing a portion of your Riptide. And while Chain Heal is easier to use efficiently in a 25-player raid, if the heal hits three targets it is quite efficient, and those situations will arise frequently in 10-player raids.
Ultimately, because healing gameplay is naturally varied (as opposed to DPS rotations for a min/max player), whenever we come up with healer set bonuses, unless they’re incredibly vanilla, they will inevitably favor some healers’ playstyles over others. And the latter group will say “but I never use
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The Daily Blink - Raids are Hard, Let's Go Shopping
The Daily Blink talks about the upcoming nerf to old raid content in Patch 4.2.
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