[Beta] Vengeance Discussion

[Deleted]

Anyone notice we only get 0.5% increased damage per artifact trait now instead of 1%?

[Delimit]

For anyone who hasn't seen the list of hotfixes:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/20747154889


Tank artifacts now passively increase damage done by up to 20% (was 40%), based on artifact trait points spent.

Spirit Bomb damage increased by 100%.
Felblade damage reduced by 45% for Vengeance.
Fel Eruption damage reduced by 65% for Vengeance.
Burning Alive damage reduced by 50%.

[Tazgoth]

Interesting. Was our single target damaged out of line from other tanks?

[Delimit]

Nope. Probably 3rd on ST. The ones above us on ST still kept their damage, oddly enough.

I haven't looked too hard at Warrior, but I think the nerfs/buffs to others actually put us at the bottom of ST damage.

Hopefully Blizzard will get some proper tuning done by the time the first raid happens.

[Syrex87]

Nope. Probably 3rd on ST. The ones above us on ST still kept their damage, oddly enough.

I haven't looked too hard at Warrior, but I think the nerfs/buffs to others actually put us at the bottom of ST damage.

Hopefully Blizzard will get some proper tuning done by the time the first raid happens.

You have to wonder what data they're looking at when they decide to make these changes. I know DPS/DMG isn't super important for tanks, but to buff an ability multiple times, only to then nerf it by 65% in one go just seems odd (as well as basically halving felblade).

I thought tanks were supposed to be around 90% of DPS this time around?

[Melsiren]

You have to wonder what data they're looking at when they decide to make these changes. I know DPS/DMG isn't super important for tanks, but to buff an ability multiple times, only to then nerf it by 65% in one go just seems odd (as well as basically halving felblade).

I thought tanks were supposed to be around 90% of DPS this time around?

With how they stripped away our control over our own survivability, I really wouldn't doubt if they're aiming much lower than 90%.

I'm pretty sure the target they were aiming for with WoD was 75% of a dps specs dps.

They're really jerking tanks around right now, but I'm not really that concerned until the first raid tier.

[diggorey]

Gotta say that the shapeshift forms look rad as fuck in Legion imho, but without transmog, the novelty will surely fall of quite fast. Iirc legendaries affectet how the forms look like (might recall wrong), but there still won't be that much variety. Certainly a good direction though.

I like the Avatar of Ursol (spirit bear thingy form) and the pvp form (emerald nightmare <3), though the latter is just basically bear form with spikes. but then again, out of the vengeance appaerances I only like the hidden one (shield), the others are kinda...meh.

On another note: Before beta access, I seriously and wholeheartedly said, that Bear was the only tank spec I would play in Legion, it seemed so much fun. Now that I've tried Veng and Bear...it's gonna be Veng (coming from BrM, I'm a fan of fast paced playstyles, spammy or not).

[Adaren]

The fact that they only nerfed talents makes me think that this is intended as more of a talent tuning pass than actually trying to tune our DPS. Once the talent rows are evened out, I expect that they'll buff up our core abilities.

[Munkky]

The fact that they only nerfed talents makes me think that this is intended as more of a talent tuning pass than actually trying to tune our DPS. Once the talent rows are evened out, I expect that they'll buff up our core abilities.

3/4 of those nerfs are stupid and only hurt us, especially considering we weren't even the top 2 dps tanks. The 4th you could say is balancing, but it may have thrown balance in the opposite direction for that row.

[Deleted]

Nope. Probably 3rd on ST. The ones above us on ST still kept their damage, oddly enough.

I haven't looked too hard at Warrior, but I think the nerfs/buffs to others actually put us at the bottom of ST damage.

Hopefully Blizzard will get some proper tuning done by the time the first raid happens.

Which tanks are the highest right now in single target/aoe damage?

[Delimit]

With how they stripped away our control over our own survivability, I really wouldn't doubt if they're aiming much lower than 90%.

I'm pretty sure the target they were aiming for with WoD was 75% of a dps specs dps.

They're really jerking tanks around right now, but I'm not really that concerned until the first raid tier.

They specifically said they want tanks to be more competitive with DPS this time around especially since our survivability was closer to DPS as well. Blizzards procrastination towards balancing (again) will lead to yet another round of knee jerk "balancing" changes that will happen right before and during the first few weeks of raids. Hopefully we don't end up with the same overbuffing/nerfing (BRF Brewmaster) and/or ridiculous set bonuses/trinkets to compensate.

The fact that they only nerfed talents makes me think that this is intended as more of a talent tuning pass than actually trying to tune our DPS. Once the talent rows are evened out, I expect that they'll buff up our core abilities.

That doesn't make any sense, considering how few "core" abilities we have. IA and Soul Cleave have continually been balancing issues for them due to how strong they are in AOE situations, which they've been trying to tone down. The biggest nerfs were to single target damaging abilities, the only place we were actually balanced. On par with DPS that we significantly out geared/skilled, and about 80-85% of an equally geared/skilled DPS. Yet AOE, where we were already entirely too strong, we got another damage buff -

Which tanks are the highest right now in single target/aoe damage?

Blood DK's and Seraphim Prot were both already higher on damage. Blood DK changes ended in roughly a wash, and Prot ended up with a tiny AOE nerf. My DH lost ~40k DPS on single target, which puts my DPS below my Guardian, which was probably the weakest ST damage before the buffs they were just given to AOE and ST.

Like I said, hopefully they get some proper balancing done in the next couple of weeks.

[Melsiren]

They specifically said they want tanks to be more competitive with DPS this time around especially since our survivability was closer to DPS as well. Blizzards procrastination towards balancing (again) will lead to yet another round of knee jerk "balancing" changes that will happen right before and during the first few weeks of raids. Hopefully we don't end up with the same overbuffing/nerfing (BRF Brewmaster) and/or ridiculous set bonuses/trinkets to compensate.

The complete and total lack of communication over balance tweeks as well really does not help the situation. Right now recent changes have been nothing short of ridiculous, if they really want tanks to be closer to dps than they currently are on live. Which leads me to believe that they really don't know what direction they want to go with tanks right now.

I completely agree, I feel like at this rate we might get a repeat of BRF, and HM over buffs and nerfs. I sincerely hope they don't make the same mistakes, I played a prot pally, and it was not until I got my T18 4 piece that I finally felt even close to where I was before the massive nerfs prot received in HM. (I won't even bring up Libram raid cancer.)

I'm actually surprisingly positive though. I'm really looking forward to playing VDH, I just hope we get some love in the damage department before the first raid tier goes live.

[Adaren]

3/4 of those nerfs are stupid and only hurt us, especially considering we weren't even the top 2 dps tanks. The 4th you could say is balancing, but it may have thrown balance in the opposite direction for that row.

I mean, I don't doubt that all of the nerfs hurt us (lol). And I don't doubt that either we need to be buffed up or the other tanks need to have their DPS nerfed further in order to ensure class balance.

But it's also true that Blizzard nerfed 3 talents that were all the highest DPS options in their respective rows, and buffed a 4th talent that was the lowest DPS option in its row. Their motivation behind the changes is clearly to flatten each talent row so that we have more possible talent options, and so that (once our base damage is balanced) talent choices with massive DPS disparities don't cause us to either be overperforming or underperforming on DPS.

I'm as cynical about Blizzard class balance as anyone else, but it's still abundantly clear to me that they didn't implement these changes because they thought Vengeance DPS was too high. Let's hope they remember to balance us back out before the end of August.

That doesn't make any sense, considering how few "core" abilities we have. IA and Soul Cleave have continually been balancing issues for them due to how strong they are in AOE situations, which they've been trying to tone down. The biggest nerfs were to single target damaging abilities, the only place we were actually balanced. On par with DPS that we significantly out geared/skilled, and about 80-85% of an equally geared/skilled DPS. Yet AOE, where we were already entirely too strong, we got another damage buff -

I think this speaks more to an overall problem with the Vengeance talent design. We have very few core rotation abilities, so they have to introduce many of them with talents. They want us to be able to pick up multiple additional core abilities (e.g. Felblade, Fracture, Fel Eruption), but that means those abilities need to be on different rows. The result is that these core-abilities-turned-into-talents are competing with passive utility talents, and you end up with stupid talent rows like the Fel Eruption tier.

So if they want to buff us up, they're going to need to buff our core abilities / artifact, because our stupid talent layout puts DPS talents next to utility talents because Vengeance lacks DPS core spells. And it's too late in the beta cycle to address the root cause.

[diggorey]

The complete and total lack of communication over balance tweeks as well really does not help the situation.

The WoW guys could really learn something from Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch department, concerning communication with players....

I completely agree, I feel like at this rate we might get a repeat of BRF, and HM over buffs and nerfs. I sincerely hope they don't make the same mistakes,

I've played BrM since MoP launch and even then Blizzard couldn't balance Stagger. Which, of course, didn't prevent them from making the same mistakes in HM and BRF. So, while i hope the y learnt something, I fear didn't.

[Munkky]

I mean, I don't doubt that all of the nerfs hurt us (lol). And I don't doubt that either we need to be buffed up or the other tanks need to have their DPS nerfed further in order to ensure class balance.

But it's also true that Blizzard nerfed 3 talents that were all the highest DPS options in their respective rows, and buffed a 4th talent that was the lowest DPS option in its row. Their motivation behind the changes is clearly to flatten each talent row so that we have more possible talent options, and so that (once our base damage is balanced) talent choices with massive DPS disparities don't cause us to either be overperforming or underperforming on DPS.

I'm as cynical about Blizzard class balance as anyone else, but it's still abundantly clear to me that they didn't implement these changes because they thought Vengeance DPS was too high. Let's hope they remember to balance us back out before the end of August.

Spirit Bomb damage increased by 100%.
Spirit bomb has just gotten a buff while the same patch fel Devastation got a nerf, making spirit bomb viable. Then they doubled the damage again.

Felblade damage reduced by 45% for Vengeance.
Felblade was a slightly better Shear and now deals less damage than Shear. There is a chance now that flame crash will beat it. Actually I think it will, math pending since I don't have Internet until Tuesday.

Fel Eruption damage reduced by 65% for Vengeance.
The other two choices were utility. This was the only dps option. It now gives the others a chance at dps but makes the utility that much better since you don't have to decide between it and a high damage ability,n though this will more than likely still be best on St.

Burning Alive damage reduced by 50%.
Wasn't used for the damage, that has been fluff damage the entire time for class fantasy purposes. It was used for the Dr and in conjunction with Fiery demise.

I suppose I worded it wrong. There's a difference between balancing us and just straight hurting our dps for no reason, especially being our dps is lower than the rest of the pack.

[Deleted]

I don't really mind being slightly lower than other tanks on single target if our passive cleave and aoe stays completely insane, especially with 5 man content being much more important.

[ShasVa]

On Live, I have the mythic tank heirloom so that'll do until Level 110. Might I need anything else, such as WoD-crated rings/necklace/etc? Not so much for 98-100, but 100-110.

[Meataxe]

U wont need extra trinkets. U get alot levelling up.

Also where do we stand survivability wise right now in the pecking order?

[Redmage]

On Live, I have the mythic tank heirloom so that'll do until Level 110. Might I need anything else, such as WoD-crated rings/necklace/etc? Not so much for 98-100, but 100-110.

Any and all WOD gear will be completely useless very quickly.

[ambio]

Any and all WOD gear will be completely useless very quickly.

Not too quickly. 715 ilevel stuff will take you till at least 105-106. And with DH getting our abilities thru talents we are kinda slow out the gate. So if you got money to burn get some 715 gear.