As you can imagine, we’ve been extremely busy lately and so we’ve gotten behind on answering your theorycrafting questions posted in the original Beta Class Balance Analysis thread. Rest assured, we’re still reading and appreciating the feedback. Keep it coming! As you may be able to tell from the changes in the recent builds, we’re generally tweaking damage, healing, and other attributes up and down to get balance just right. This is an iterative process so you may see alternating buffs and nerfs to your class between builds.
We’re getting progressively closer to balance with each build. Despite some of the proclamations we’ve read lately, no class is intended to be on the bottom of the meters. The difference between the highest and the lowest DPS in the latest build is not 30%, 20%, or even 10%. Though certain fights may favor specific specs, we’re actually seeing most specs within 5% of each other. There are a few exceptions, however, which we intend to bring in line soon: Subtlety, Frost DKs, and Frost mages. Most are actually within 2% but the few in the 2-5% range (Arms, Fury, Marksmanship, Survival) will also be brought in line soon as well. Of course, we’ll be vigilant with keeping an eye on balance and making necessary tuning tweaks as time permits.
We understand that some of the theorycrafting community may disagree with the numbers. This tends to be because they’re doing things that we don’t expect, or because the theorycrafting is inaccurate. There’s certainly going to be some confusion, but one of the goals of this thread is to provide accurate clarification. If you’re seeing substantial differences between specs, please try to identify where the discrepancies are. If a spec seems overpowered or underpowered according to the theorycraft, double-check it for accuracy by comparing it to actual results. If that checks out, maybe there’s something that you’re doing that we don’t expect; please present that info in a concise way, with as much supporting evidence (both theorycraft and especially actual log parses) as possible. We can’t debug everyone’s theorycraft, but we can try to identify large discrepancies.
Now, to catch up on questions…
Regarding racial expertise and weapons, I would like to know what would happen in the following scenario: 7.50% on-gear hit rating, 6.50% on-gear expertise, Main hand Axe, Off hand Sword, racial expertise (either sword or axe). Would you be spell hit capped or not?
OK, update on spell hit from expertise from weapon racials: It should count expertise on your main hand as spell hit. In the situation you described, an orc (axe racial, which is in the MH) would be spell hit capped, and a human (sword racial, which is in the OH) would not. The character sheet UI should properly reflect this, however, there’s currently a bug on beta where it’s not actually giving you this benefit. That will be fixed soon.
What is the design intent behind the engineer MoP "bomb" G91 Landshark? Currently on the beta it can be used by anyone, engineer or not, and has a 1 min cooldown but can only be used once per fight. Are these intended to be sellable to all players?
Yes, there are several engineer-created items in Mists which are usable by non-engineers and sellable. These are indeed intended to be usable as consumables in raids. However, the
Landsharks you mentioned share a cooldown with combat potions so these are an alternative.
Death Knight (
Forums /
Skills)
For the past several builds Death Knights have been seeing data mined info for Death Coil showing a 1.2x multiplier for the Unholy spec. We initially thought this was to account for the loss of the Morbidity talent, however we haven't see this actually make it onto the servers. Is this multiplier intended to be there and if so will we be seeing it in a future build?
We’re not sure what 1.2x multiplier you’re seeing; can you point it out? We believe it’s doing the correct amount of damage so perhaps there’s a tooltip bug.
Druid (
Forums /
Skills)
There have been reports of absolutely ridiculous amounts of DPS being done with HotW. As a Guardian, Wrath is hitting for ~140k with a SP weapon when active. Similar values are being reported for Healing Touch. I know I've been saying that HotW needed a buff, but even I think that's a little on the overboard side of things.
The intention was that
HotW allows you to DPS as strong as an equally-geared druid of each other spec on average. In other words, if a Guardian druid can Wrath for 140k with a 2sec cast, that’s 70k DPS before haste and crit. However, we’re not sure what gear exactly that was in, or with what cooldowns involved (it does seem on the high side). If you do any testing of how much DPS each spec can do while HotW’d into each other spec, we’d be very interested in seeing it. It’s quite possible that we over-buffed some of the combinations.
Hunter (
Forums /
Skills)
Cobra Strike Behaviour(possible bug) - As stated on the tooltip, it's supposed to make the next 2 pet's basic hits, a critical hit. However I've done much testing on this subject and it appears that it does not behave in the way that it should be.
Also sounds like a bug. We’ll look into that, too.
Let me restate the point that Lissanna (and GC) were making. Your question, as posed, is based on the 37K difference you see in the sims. The sims are not data. They are tools to help point at where we should look for data. If the number 37K makes you itch, then look for or generate real data (i.e., logs) from the game that support your concern. A large spread in the sim might mean there's a large spread in the game. But it's more likely that the high and low classes have small sim bugs that push them up or down. It's also more likely that the sim action profiles of the low classes could be improved. Your question may be a good question, but again, as posed, it's unsupported.
For hunters, for example, MM has been consistently low in the sims. Based on that, I would try to confirm that in game, not whine at Blizzard that MM sucks. It led Zeherah and I to find a bug in how the T14 4-piece bonus was implemented (in sims) that disproportionately affected MM. Whitefyst identified priority bogosities (e.g., glaive toss may be a dps loss during careful aim). It pointed to a missing ICD for lock and load (because SV was simmed as too many LnL procs). On the flip side, the sims have also led to improvements in the game: e.g., they point to places where MM could potentially haste cap (and Blizzard fixed it), noted that it now could now crit cap (which may be deliberate), where focus fire would not be worth using (Blizzard tweaked it), etc.
So again, if you don't like the number from a sim, dig in and understand it better. Then find a real issue with real data.
This is an awesome post!
Monk (
Forums /
Skills)
GC, since you have access to the internal gear stat budgets, can you tell me whether it should it be viable for Monks to use Strength [Parry + Dodge/Mastery] gear (Cloaks, Necks, Rings) and should Brewmasters be getting Parry from Strength like Plate Tanks do?
No, only the plate tanks get significant parry from Strength. Brewmasters should be wearing Agility jewelry.
We removed Tiger Strikes from Brewmasters and adjusted the proc rates of Elusive Brew and Gift of the Ox to account for the reduced number of normal attacks that they'll be doing. Please explain this change
Sure.
Tiger Strikes was removed, but we didn’t want to nerf the proc rate of
Elusive Brew or Gift of the Ox. So, we increased the proc rate of Elusive Brew and Gift of the Ox by 50%. Elusive Brew now adds up to 3 charges per crit: [1.5*WeaponSpeed/2.6] for 1H weapons, and [3.0*WeaponSpeed/3.6] for 2H weapons. Gift of the Ox now has a higher proc rate on white attacks: [0.03*WeaponSpeed] for 1H weapons, and [0.06*WeaponSpeed] for 2H weapons.
The T30 talents no longer proc Eminence, is this intended?
Yes. Monks are a new class and Mistweavers in particular use a very new style of healing, so this definitely has the potential to change, but our general philosophy is that abilities which do both damage and healing don’t need to cause
Eminence. The only exception that we can recall offhand is
Chi Torpedo and we may also change that to not cause Eminence to be consistent.
Also channeling CJL allows me to cast Enveloping Mist instantly, though Surging Mist does not do the same, so it feels like a bug that EM does become instant.
Yep, bug. We believe that was fixed in the most recent build.
Lastly, earlier in beta, we could cast Soothing Mist on one target, then EM on another. Recently, this is longer possible, though the CJL bug allows me to do it once again. Was it a bug being able to cast EM on anyone that wasn't Soothing Mist's target?
This is intended. Being able to cast
Enveloping Mist and
Surging Mist instantly while channeling
Soothing Mist is intended to be used to pump more healing into the target you’re channeling. You’re not intended to just keep channeling Soothing Mist on anyone and be able to cast instant Enveloping/Surging on different people.
Paladin (
Forums /
Skills)
Execution Sentence is consuming Glyph of Flash of Light, but is seeing no increase in the healing done. Is it supposed to consume the effect and receive the increase or is it not supposed to interact with the glyph at all?
Sounds like a bug. We’ll look into that.
The melee attack speed buff does not change the cooldown tooltips on abilities affected by Sanctity of Battle, for Retribution at least - and it doesn't seem like it's just tooltips not updating, but that they're not being affected at all. Is this intentional? Not that it would necessarily be a bad thing as long as we're balanced around Sanctity of Battle not benefiting from it.
This is intended. The raid buff you’re referring to increases melee and ranged attack speed, not haste.
Sanctity of Battle only uses actual haste.
Shaman (
Forums /
Skills)
It appears that there's a hidden ICD on stormlash that prevents synchronized mh+oh swings from both triggering the effect.
Yes, there is a very short ICD on
Stormlash. We’ll look into whether we need to have that or not.
Hey, just workin on some spreadsheets and was wondering if anyone had the formulas for the following:
1. Healing Tide Totem
2. Healing Stream Totem
3. Earth Shield
I'm using the formulas given on wowhead/wowdb, but it would be nice to have the actual formulas (the numbers tend to be consistently off). Also, for Healing Tide, what's the min/max for it's heal (the tooltip only gives one number, but it's not acting like HST where you're getting the same heal 7 times in a row). Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Looks like the data minable formula for
Healing Tide is accurate, but the tooltip is mistakenly only showing the minimum healing amount. It actually heals for that amount plus up to 798 at level 90. That’s before multipliers (like Purification and Mastery), by the way.
Healing Stream’s tooltip does indeed seem to be wrong. We’ll try to get that fixed. The actual healing amount (again, before multipliers), is 44.5% of SP.
Earth Shield’s tooltip also seems to be wrong. It’s actually 18.5% of SP, plus 2043 at level 90 (and again, before multipliers).
1. Riptide is consuming both the unleashed life and fury buffs, yet only the direct portion is benefiting from the unleashed fury buff. Both the direct and hot portions are benefiting from unleashed life, but the hot is not being affected by unleashed fury.
And sounds like a bug. We’ll check it out.
2. Healing Rain is not consuming unleashed fury (it's working with unleashed life fine).
Not a bug!
Unleashed Fury is a buff on the target and
Healing Rain is a persistent AoE. We didn’t think you’d want it to just increase the crit chance of a single Healing Rain tick and then end up getting consumed by it.
Warlock (
Forums /
Skills)
Wrathguard vs Felguard Head to Head Comparison [and other warlock testing]
Thanks for that. We recently did another pass on warlock pet damage and found (and fixed) a few more issues. The most recent build that went up should have resolved the issues. Please test it again and let us know what you find.
I am a bit confused with Glyph: Dark Soul (Destruction).
Without the glyph,
Dark Soul grants 30% crit while active. With
the glyph it grants 27% while active and 3% while off cooldown. Does that answer your question?
People from EJ ran test on Demo (special thanks to whi for his time) to find your hidden nerfs (you did say they were coming, but not updating tooltips is mean).
It’s not done out of meanness. We’re just applying many of our balance/tuning tweaks as hotfixes directly to beta, and that means the tooltips will be out of date until you get a new client build. That said, there are a few known bugs with warlock spells having the tooltip damage wrong, regardless of hotfixes involved. If you encounter any spells that give you grief when figuring out your formulas, let us know and we’ll try to help out. In general, we usually change both the base damage and SP scaling of a spell at the same time (though not necessarily by the same amounts). If you see only one of those change at a time, it’s a good hint that you may want to retest and make sure you’ve got the formula right.
Warrior (
Forums /
Skills)
I've got a question about Berserker Stance. A recent post linked to a video of a Fire mage demonstrating burst. The target was a warrior, and over the course of a few seconds of high damage, its rage level jumped to full.
Unless I've missed a data dump, there's been a big knowledge gap about how the stance generates rage per damage (I, and I think a lot of other players didn't realize it was so dynamic). Any information you can give?
Sure. While in
Berserker Stance, you gain 1 rage for every 1% of your health lost to damage.