7.1.5 Ptr Changes

[Gaidax]

Anyhow, with the state Affliction in this build in, I am pretty curious what they will end up bumping in Demo and Destruction, I am sure they are cooking something there too.

Side note - also dat CDF, that's like 1k spellpower nuke now with AoE component to boot. Gonna be fun here and there.

[slickwilly]

I am at a point where I am questioning my subscription.

After rolling main lock since first playing wow and class in TBC I chose to prioritize my rogue for this xpac. Got screwed because my favorite spec (Combat) is such a luckluster.
Decided to go back to lock only to discover that my favorite spec (Destruction) is damned.

I am not looking for the top dps class, but damn, sometimes its nice to at least be able to do something.

I hear hello kitty has gotten it down to one button. Might want to check it out.

[Baconeggcheese]

I think they don't want it, if you remember in WoD or MoP they told us that the last tier is where they usually give the most optimal gear exactly for that reason - to make it most attractive compared to previous gear.

It's not coincidence that everyone and their mothers ended up with tons of versatility and shit mixed in and Blizzard did this along the way, they clearly had intent behind this, otherwise why bother now?

Merely pointing out this fact, of course it could be like "lol we're bored, let's toss a coin and change stats around cuz we have nothing better to do", but something tells me it was not the case and that there is a clear pattern to this correlating of them not wanting to give most optimal gear now.

Personally I think it boils down to 2 things. 1 was there was a very clear haste bias on the gear and almost no vers, this swap around makes all 4 stats fairly even across all the gear. 2 is that tier pieces are exciting and mandatory because of the bonuses, so them having worse stats keeps off pieces (and by extension world / dungeon gear) exciting because they can net you the perfect stats that your tier is lacking.

I think it really simple as those two things as opposed to end tier gear or claiming incompetence. If you recall, HFC gear wasn't exactly perfectly optimized for any specs. Pieces had multistrike for instance, and no spec wanted it.

- - - Updated - - -

Side note - also dat CDF, that's like 1k spellpower nuke now with AoE component to boot. Gonna be fun here and there.

I honestly can't stand the idea of it the way it is. It still has one of the shittiest interactions with havoc, while also being on a completely different CD that is ever changing. Oh and it kind of makes cataclysm a joke because it does more damage with a 3rd of the cooldown.

[Lucrece]

Cataclysm baseline on a 30 sec cd seems pretty reasonable to reduce aoe ramp up. Either that or FnB baseline.

Though honestly they could stand to make rain of fire better. Rolling in shards from multiple immolations and it still falls well below what other aoe some classes are putting out. Similar problem to balance druid's Starfall, not enough damage for the build up.

Havoc chaos bolt with magistrike feels even more useful since you focus priority targets in M+ even if you're not beating the havoc demonhunter or windwalker in trash packs.

[Gaidax]

I honestly can't stand the idea of it the way it is. It still has one of the shittiest interactions with havoc, while also being on a completely different CD that is ever changing. Oh and it kind of makes cataclysm a joke because it does more damage with a 3rd of the cooldown.

Well, I'm pretty sure they will do more, but I do think it's good they did this to CDF because it makes it a viable choice in quite a few scenarios now as opposed to pretty much nothing or at best drawing with SC before. Heck, at the very least it makes it a much more fun button to push with this AoE tacked on causing numbers to fly.

Maybe they could make it a bit more fluid with Havoc and actually about Havoc - it should have had it's CD get lower with Haste, if I remember correctly at some early Destruction iteration in Legion it was doing it. For example if they would drop Havoc to 15 seconds CD and allow it to scale with haste, it would be a perfect match to CDF AND it would contain Wreck Havoc pretty well too, which is double good, IMO.


As for Cata, I would not wotry too much, potential tuning aside it still offers AoE Immolate which is quite powerful on its own. I am pretty sure there will be more changes, anyway and worst case scenario it stays like this and will end up being forgotten choice, then they will just go ahead and buff it like they always do in such cases.

In short, I am pretty convinced they have some more stuff in the bag there, it just did not get out yet.

[Deleted]

Blue post said they gonna buff shadow priest damage across the board with the next PTR build.

So I guess we can expect destro and especially demo buffs too (in terms of numbers).

[Advo]

Blue post said they gonna buff shadow priest damage across the board with the next PTR build.

So I guess we can expect destro and especially demo buffs too (in terms of numbers).

Indeed, I'm totally ready for a 5% buff to incinerate and a 10% buff to hand of gul'dan impact damage.

[Baconeggcheese]

Well, I'm pretty sure they will do more

It needs mechanical changes, actually it just needs 1 simple one and that's to be decoupled from immolate and made to just shoot your target. I don't expect them to do that tbh.

As for Cata, I would not wotry too much, potential tuning aside it still offers AoE Immolate which is quite powerful on its own.

The immolates it applies aren't very exciting in 2016 when everything is about burst. Cataclysm is really just under tuned for what it is,

In short, I am pretty convinced they have some more stuff in the bag there, it just did not get out yet.

I'd be surprised to see any more mechanical changes which I think we could use. Tuning is ofc gonna keep happening since they've barely started.

[Shandalar]

They can only talk about shadow priest? Lol

[Medicine Man]

They can only talk about shadow priest? Lol

Talking to shadow priests is quite warranted, in my opinion. They have a pretty bad balance issue right now that can only be resolved with care and communication.

[Gihelle]

They can only talk about shadow priest? Lol

I kinda feel bad because the person who wrote that huge shadow priest feedback that got a blue reply is my fiance, and I don't know nearly as much on the technical side to write something like that

[Medicine Man]

Hmmm.... another thing: Not is reporting that base pet damage for all pet types is increased by 20% in the latest patch, including the pets summoned by Grimoire of Service. If correct, that is where part of our (demonology) damage is being refunded.

[bio347]

Hmmm.... another thing: Not is reporting that base pet damage for all pet types is increased by 20% in the latest patch, including the pets summoned by Grimoire of Service. If correct, that is where part of our (demonology) damage is being refunded.

There's actually datamine about the pet abilities being buffed (well, Lash of Pain and Shadow Bite being buffed, Firebolt is a dud) by about 20%, so that seems reasonable. It'd be really nice if we could see the melee damage of our pets (including Demo's doggies) in tooltips and datamines to 100% confirm.

[Sunlighthell]

It seems haste value for affliction at least is going to be way lower than on live. With new changes crit may overtake.

[Bullettime]

It seems haste value for affliction at least is going to be way lower than on live. With new changes crit may overtake.

Just to note, in case people are following Icy Veins pretty blindly, that's already arguably the case. Haste and Crit do a lot of back and forthing and even overtake Mastery at times.

Affliction scales nicely with all of its stats, besides maybe Vers, and your stat weights change nonstop, especially based on how much Mastery you have.

[Avikur]

I'm assuming they're still working on the Destruction lvl 30 talent row:

Eradication - CB increases damage to that target by 12% for 6 seconds

Enhanced life tap - increase all damage by 12% for 20 seconds

I can't imagine a scenario where eradication would be better, it's limited to 1 target (2 with Havoc), you'd still need to be using life tap anyway and it only lasts 6 seconds!

now ELT has been reduced down to 12% is it still better than reverse entropy?

[Violetti]

I'm assuming they're still working on the Destruction lvl 30 talent row:

Eradication - CB increases damage to that target by 12% for 6 seconds

Enhanced life tap - increase all damage by 12% for 20 seconds

I can't imagine a scenario where eradication would be better, it's limited to 1 target (2 with Havoc), you'd still need to be using life tap anyway and it only lasts 6 seconds!

now ELT has been reduced down to 12% is it still better than reverse entropy?

elt is nw 10% for 20sec, so it might be close with eradication considering we're gonna be casting much more chaosbolts than now and gcds are gonna be more important than now
reverse entropy is last

[Avikur]

elt is nw 10% for 20sec, so it might be close with eradication considering we're gonna be casting much more chaosbolts than now and gcds are gonna be more important than now
reverse entropy is last

I thought ELT went from 10% to 15% and now it was 12%?

edit: oh yeah i see in game it is 10%, the talent calculator on wowdb had it at 12% for 20 seconds

[Lucrece]

They are going to make you love Life Tap and Soul Effigy and Grimoire of Supremacy summon twisting to trigger Lord of Fire/Sindorei Spite.

Whether you like it or not.

Doubling down on strengths is more like doubling down on their design choices until they can save face next xpac by rolling back some of the crap people hate.

[Deleted]

Hmmm.... another thing: Not is reporting that base pet damage for all pet types is increased by 20% in the latest patch, including the pets summoned by Grimoire of Service. If correct, that is where part of our (demonology) damage is being refunded.

I'd already suggested that pet damage is an obvious place to replace lost damage for demo. The whole concept for demo is that your damage is sourced by your pets. It might also make Demonic Empowerment feel better by increasing the reward you get from it.

The change to Synergy feels very much "talent levelling" fix. Synergy was by far and away the best choice for demo there, and it it was very RNGesus dependent - you could get lucky and do massive TKC's - which iirc is also being reduced.

It feels more that they are smoothing out damage sources and stopping talents feeling not only mandatory with the others ignored, but possibly trying to return demo's damage to it's demons: which was the whole idea int he first place.

Only problem I see in that is that player slike having damage from themselves, because it's more controllable. The AI, particularly for guardian pets, is very dumb and you cannot truly control it.

It's s shame the spec-pet for affliction is the felhunter. I think the succubus fits better - Lash of Pain. Killing you slowly and she makes you enjoy it lol