Patch 5.4 - Sky Golem Mount, Blue Tweets, Sha of Fear Solo Kill, Weekly News Recap

Classes
Set bonus numbers in particular are very stand in. I wouldn't spend effort trying to math / sim their values quite yet. (Source)

The hybrid vs. pure debate is not one I wade into often. I find that logic holds little power in that discussion. (Source)

Do you ever wish you could redo the class system? Drop/add classes, redo roles,etc?
Every day. We struggle with expectations, tradition, precedent and that's-the-way-it's-always-been constantly. (Source)

Risks being heard as "Bad players should take this talent".
"Everyone take X all the time" isn't the goal of the talent system. (Source)
Another hint: don't take the talent that a website says is the highest DPS. Take the one that makes YOUR dps the highest. (Source)
Realistically how many classes do you feel actually have talent choices where that question can be asked?
I don't have the data right in front of me, but it's definitely not ideal for every spec yet. 5.4 is a chance to work on it. (Source)

Why do you guys love smart heals so much? Makes smart play and spell choice less impactful.
I would agree they have become too dominant. The risk is that dumb heals can make a spell very low priority. (Source)
don't nerf smart heals, buff the not smart ones.
Isn't that kind of the same thing? It still changes prioritization. Imagine PoH >>> CoH. Why use CoH? (Source)

Fair enough feral is losing instant clone (it was OP) but are others losing their instant CC too? Feral PvP?
We balance around the whole package, not individual spells. Which other instant CCs do you think are overpowered? (Source)

This topic has dropped off the front page. 56 unique posters, 302 responses, tried hard to keep it constructive.
Have you played with the new tier set 4p bonus? We want to see how that feels as a possible solution. (Source)
Set bonuses shouldn't really fix class issues, should they? : \
No, but we find it's a good way to test out ideas without constantly iterating on the core rotations themselves. (Source)

Resto Shaman are in a bad spot; behind in most metrics, including the weakest raid CD in 25s. They need some love in 5.4
What metrics? We find HPS is a poor way to evaluate healer power. Healing often doesn't come down to just button mashing. (Source)
HPS is a huge metric in what healers are brought to raids only next to utility/absorb, why is it poor viewing?
The job of healers is to keep the raid alive, not heal as much as they can every second. (Source)
HPS can be a useful measurement in that discussion, but too many forum posts and tweets want to equate HPS with "healerness." (Source)

For example dps < dmg done to the correct target. Topping the meters is fairly easy...
I feel the need to repeat this every so often: HPS from aggregate sites is not a great way to measure who is the best healer. (Source)
Many raid leaders have a good sense for who their reliable healers are, but not the kind of thing that shows up from a simple Raidbots link. (Source)
WoL and Raidbots were some of the best... and worst... tools to put in the hands of the community. (Source)

How about the metric that every shaman that is posting on the forums is all but begging for your attention for change.
That's not really a useful metric and it's one shared by all healers. (Source)
This is why a forum discussion of strengths and weaknesses of *all* healers interests me more than the class forum thread. (Source)
Class forums have a propensity for: Bliz has no direction for us, never plays us, doesn't respond to our threads. (Source)
Stick with class forums for discussions of gems etc. If you want to talk power, do it where other classes will respond IMO. (Source)

Pretty much this. I liked when talents mattered. In b4 "everyone specced the same". Not like today!
But everyone did spec the same. We think it's impossible to offer "choice" that can be solved by math. (Source)
I can understand how you might love the *idea* of old talent trees. What did you love about the reality? (Source)

We know. Tanks say hi. Every tanking class feels the same now. Possibly with the exception of a monk, haven't tried them.
You say that, and yet every day I get pleas to buff some tank because they can't compete / lack the tools. (Source)
So from that perspective, tanks aren't similar enough. (Source)
Imbalance of feedback where players who want buffs are loud and players who like classes staying different aren't?
Entirely possible. (Source)

Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
any major things to come for DKs mobility?I find them less mobile than other melee dps classes.Would you agree?
Again, it's the package. DKs have a lot of ranged abilities and Death Grip. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
When will Resto Druid Glyph of Efflorescence be on PTR? Is this glyph being rethought?
Our concern is that Swiftmend went from being a great ST heal to part of the AE healing kit. Maybe that wasn't the right call. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Have you seen this post detailing some concerns about hunters? It has some nice points.
Stampede was never intended to provide utility. It's a DPS cooldown. (Source)
Silencing Shot is tough. As a talent, it will always get chosen. But hunters don't need more CC so we don't want to bake it in. (Source)
Readiness we are still iterating on. Removing offense or removing the ability both still on the table. (Source)
Pet survivability we can look at, but pets aren't supposed to be free DPS with no management either. (Source)
We are pretty happy with raid utility for all specs. Every class asks for more to guarantee a raid spot. (Source)
But we don't want guaranteed raid spots, and overall raid comp diversity is satisfactory for us. (Source)

Would prefer Readiness to be fully removed from DPS (RF) and just be utility-- would free up a LOT of defensive choice in PvE
That is another way to go, as would be just lowering def CDs (or giving them charges). Still evaluating feedback. (Source)

Readiness should do more defensive stuff. Masters call and traps and so forth.
Master's Call, maybe. Traps were one of the big things we wanted to eliminate. (Source)

Please don't buff hunter's focus dump. PTR + T16 2pc will reduce value of special shots and homogenize specs.
Can you explain why it homogenizes specs? (Source)

Just a quick question: what cloak proc would hunters be using? Xuen or Yu'lon? I assume Xuen, but I just wanted to be sure.
Yeah, we usually group hunters with melee not casters. (Source)

Any possibility of baking widow venom in to another shot for hunters? Would really help with button bloat.
Possibly. Wouldn't the ranged version just be the best version then? (Source)

To compensate readiness, please give MM back its old Chimera serpent sting proc and Aimed its old baseline crit chance of 4-5%
Cool. Feedback on the best ways to buff the hunters specs without causing rotation weirdness or PvP burst is appreciated. (Source)

Would you ever consider bringing back the arrows/bullets for hunters with an extra quiver just for hunters to store them in?
We'd like to do a quiver just for the visuals. Ammo returning is unlikely. There wasn't much depth to that system. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The PTR Frostburn change makes casting even less appealing in PvP - there is huge objection to this. Why go this direction?
You don't think the amazing synergy of doing more burst damage while someone was CC'd was getting to be a problem? (Source)

give mages some unique raid utility. Locks have tons.Mana gems for healers aka lock cookies? not on the same cooldown?
Do healers want another mana source to manage? (Source)
please find a way to adjust Mage knobs without changing frost mastery

The synergy among the high damage, instant attacks and CC is really hard (impossible?) to balance. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
How come you're fine with no Holy Paladin using over 6 Talents EVER, but not fine with using 1 talent ALWAYS?
That talent dramatically changes how paladins heal. It's one thing when a talent feels like a rules breaker. (Source)
When everyone uses a rules breaker, it's just the new status quo. Same reason we want some (not every) lock to use Sacrifice. (Source)

Holy Paladins are lacking in the PTR 5.4 at the moment. Any hope for compensation considering the Eternal Flame nerfs we got ?
Yes, we will do something. The intent was not to nerf Holy. The intent was to make hotting paladins an option not the only way. (Source)
EF, like GoSac and KJC are intended as rule-breaking talents. We want to see some players use them but not all. (Source)
If everyone takes them, they aren't rule breakers, but just the new way those classes work. (Source)
You should know EF is still the only way to heal, no matter what (as long as its viable) because SoO favors hots
So if we buff them 1% over the unviable level they then become mandatory? What about 1/2%? (Source)

If you want people to stop using EF as a baseline Holy talent, why not bring back the old radiance hots?
At the time, paladins complained that HR wasn't reliable because the hots came too late. Might be an interesting glyph maybe. (Source)

dislike EF for holy, dislike Ss for holy, dislike SH for holy. Could you make them attractive for holy please?
We appreciate that SH will just never work for some Holy players, but we think we can get SS to compete with EF. (Source)

im curious to why seal twisting for paladins was left on purpose in TBC or if you never knew about it?
With any system like that it's hard to get swapping into the sweet spot. (Source)
Changing aspects / armors / stances / seals every couple of seconds sucks but so does never changing them. (Source)

any response to my previous tweet? Does blizzard acknowledge the fact that haste is a priority stat for pala tanks...
Yes, we know paladins like haste. This has been discussed much before. (Source)
would you say we like haste just because, or because it is the best stat for us? I love mist prot palla dont get me wrong
Too long a discussion for twitter. In brief, we disagree we the logic that says avoidance is garbage because it's unreliable. (Source)
But we get that haste is more fun, so it's a moot point anyway. It plays into active mitigation, which is ultimately our goal. (Source)

Time for that complete pally rework in 6.0 yet?
Very unlikely. We're happy with the paladin design. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
So how about another disc nerf? As a holy priest I feel like my healing is rendered useless thanks absorbs sniping everything.
We think Holy competes with Disc well now except in mana, and we're not sure yet whether D has too much regen or H too little. (Source)

Holy priest mana regen is/has been/and will be in a terrible place, lets give them a glyph so they can have angel wings! #sigh
Is Holy priest regen too low or is Disc priest regen too good? (Source)

What is your idea behind Mind Spike? It has no use in any fight and is never casted besides instant fdcl procs.
The original intent was for quick kills, esp. when soloing when you didn't want to dot everything up. (Source)
Just curious, why was Burden of guilt replaced with the new talent? Not a terrible change, just wandering about the reasoning
We felt it would open up comp options for paladins. We really think comp trumps almost all PvP balance issues. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
You still haven't compensated Resto Shaman for not getting HTT buffed with other raid CDs in 5.3 causing us to be ~20% behind
HTT is a talent. Buffing it only makes it more mandatory for Resto. SLT is the shaman raid CD. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
GC pls do something about DAs' pvp debuff, its annoying to switch just becuz we have that, DA isn't as viable as real tanks
Not sure we're excited about the idea of locks using that glyph for PvP survivability. (Source)

Removal of Cor extending and new 4p t16, void ray is quickly becoming an obsolete spell that was already in an awkward place.
Void Ray is super awkward. Could just be Fel Flame with another visual. Not sure yet. (Source)
Please, please, please do NOT remove Void Ray. Demo Multidoting will become an absolute QoL nightmare I don't want.
if we remove the dot refresh (both spells) we might add it back via glyph. (Source)

Mind if I ask another question? You didn't like blood fear in 5.0 but you're practically giving it to Paladins? I'm confused
Blood Fear had a very short CD and was instant. The health cost wasn't much of a cost at all. (Source)
Turn Evil has a CD and cast time and paladins have to give up FoJ or Repentance to take it. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Since Arms single target dps has always been limited largely by PvP burst, would a more bleed-heavy dps output be reasonable?
We agree bleeds are a good kit for Arms, but we don't want to bring Rend back and there is already one passive bleed. (Source)
We would be open to other ways of incorporating bleeds though. (Source)
Why not? Autoapplied bleed is boring. Rend was amazing.
Rend was a no win situation for us. Many warriors begged us to remove it. They would still be cranky if it was still around. (Source)
How are you defining passive here? Not seeing many things that wouldn't be basically rend (upkeep) or passive.
That's what I meant. Imagine MS causes Deep Wounds and another bleed. What's the gameplay there? (Source)
Yeah that'd be boring. What about forum suggestion: Mastery make all strikes provide bleed. New strike consumes bleed deal dmg
Might work for PvE, though target switching might suck unless the bleeds are trivial to apply or move. (Source)
For PvP the challenge is burst might be high or bleeds might be too easy to remove (or both). (Source)

So excited about shield wall & spell reflect no longer requiring a shield. Less telegraphing in pvp & I can remove two macros
There is still plenty of telegraphing. That is intended. We do want you to be able to remove the macros. (Source)

I like the optional complexity of zerker stance for rage, but disappointed that it doesn't seem to increase dmg much.
It's pretty close to a good spot, but might could benefit from a small buff. Too much and everyone ignores Battle. (Source)

So far I'm interested in the addition of Riposte and change to Ultimatum - trying to get tank wars crit without itemization?
It's an issue where DPS scaling with both DPS and tanking stats was actually causing a problem. (Source)

how about replacing hamstring with a bleed that reduces movement speed 50% /rend
Rend is a tough one for us B/C we heard a lot of requests to remove it, but once we did, all these other warriors wanted it back. (Source)
If Rendstring did damage, it would just have to be part of the DPS rotation, no? (Source)

Perhaps it's time to put Heroic Strike out to pasture, then. w/50% more GCDs, rage could be spent on Slam or WS
Possibly, but we really like the idea of the ability and aren't quite ready to give up on it yet. (Source)

So, after thinking about rage this morning, how do you guys think it's working as a resource? Happy? Unhappy? Thoughts?
Pretty happy. Ideally we could make it slightly less predictable to get more Heroic Strike use. (Source)