Documented Enhancement Hotfix Changes

[Murderdoll]

What a fucking meme this is.

[Bullarkie]

Will Enhance play like 7.1 again?

[MiseryIndex]

What a fucking meme this is.

We're fighting the Burning Memegion?

[MakeMeLaugh]

Well, hopefully I can go back to the old build with eye+akainu right? Even without any tier. Can't believe akainu will be finally usable. But even then, HH may still be better than BF because of how hard LL hits now(it even got buffed), which would be bad because rockbiter spam is hell.

[Imnick]

Will Enhance play like 7.1 again?

With no tier set or legendaries, you will continue using the build currently on live servers.

Sims haven't been done with legendaries yet, but it is anticipated that using TN will allow you to spec Hailstorm, though using Aikanu's will favour Hot Hand over Boulderfist, and neither will use CS (or Tempest on a single target).

Four set hasn't been calculated yet, but it was possible to run a set quite similar to 7.1 once you had the 4 set (which is the point where all builds stop using FoA, so they have more MS to spare for Lava Lash), and that will probably continue to be true (because nothing from it got nerfed).

While you still take Overcharge on a single target, it is worth noting that only about two bosses in Nighthold are really "single target" encounters. For the rest, you should pick Tempest, just like in 7.1.

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Scratch that we have 4p sims now:



Once you get your 4 set, you take Boulderfist and Tempest.
RIP Hot Hand/Windsong ; -;

It is worth noting that while these builds pick CS, they are not using CL rotationally.
Once you have the 4 set and Boulderfist, you stop spending any MS on aoe abilities because you want to spend it on Lava Lash.
CS remains the optimum talent because of the two casts of CL you do every time you use Feral Spirits, because a very small amount of DPS is more DPS than no DPS at all.

Without the support of legendaries (sims still not run) Hailstorm is still dead.

[Deleted]

Remember, at the same time as we go up other people are going down, or sideways.
Shadow got it pretty bad, although admittedly Ret wasn't touched as much as I expected :P

I considered this as well, I mean I am not optimistic without a reason after all :P. But at the same time I have the feeling that geting into a place where we can compete in st dmg with specs that also have insane aoe or ranged cleave isn´t going to be enough. And I don´t see us geting into a better position that this with those 2% even if others move down.

But I actually expect another wave of hotfixes after first week or weeks of NH. The reason is that NH seems to be pretty cleave heavy with some heavy aoe thrown in as well. This is something I expect us to struggle with and if we don´t have top notch ST will cause us to fall out of the midpack right into bottom tier again. And this is what makes me afraid, because I have my personal doubts if it comes to Blizzards work in the class ans spec ballance department :P. But maybe they will do it better this time, after all our spec diversity seems to reach at a new high after the hotfixes and I like to see this as a good sign for the future.

With no tier set or legendaries, you will continue using the build currently on live servers.

That being said, the 2-3% difference to the old build is negligible and everyone should carefully consider if it´s not worth wasting a couple of theoretical dps for a build that plays much smoother, thus probably gives more dps in a real scenario anyways and is much more fun on top of it.

[Imnick]

But I actually expect another wave of hotfixes after first week or weeks of NH. The reason is that NH seems to be pretty cleave heavy with some heavy aoe thrown in as well. This is something I expect us to struggle with and if we don´t have top notch ST will cause us to fall out of the midpack right into bottom tier again. And this is what makes me afraid, because I have my personal doubts if it comes to Blizzards work in the class ans spec ballance department :P. But maybe they will do it better this time, after all our spec diversity seems to reach at a new high after the hotfixes and I like to see this as a good sign for the future.

I also think that there will be more hotfixes after the first week of Nighthold.
These changes were conservative, they will see what the results are during the week of normal/heroic and then tune again a final time before Mythic opens.

Once Mythic opens though, that's it for changes for a few weeks. They aren't going to touch balance until a while after the 24th to avoid interfering with the race.


I'm hopeful that they can make WS/HH viable with 4 set again. Before this hotfix, you could take any level 15 talent you liked once you had your set bonuses. Now you can't

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Commentary from simlord Rusah (who provided all those pretty numbers):

For 0p, nothing significant changes. An overused talent gets brought back, a few under-used talents are brought up. Balance for 0p builds is a lot closer, and good overall for our spec. Hailstorm comes up quite a bit, tack an extra 1.5% on to each HS build with the legendary ring and they'll be closer.

When we get 4p tier, things change a lot from before the hotfix. Boulderfist flies to the top, as the Boulderfist/Tempest builds are going to dominate, with AS > LS > HS (lol hailstorm still bad for this build). Legendary ring again props up the BF/HS/T build a good amount to be about equal with the other top 2 builds. The next best HS build is pretty far down, unfortunately maintaining its uptime has an incredible amount of GCD competition with Windsong/Hot Hand builds which utilize Rockbiter. Stormbringer proc rates are very high with 4p and the extra haste is unfortunately still far more valuable for fishing for maximum stormbringers. Time spent not generating resource is time not spent casting more Lava Lashes to utilize our 4p. Boulderfist has freedom to fit Hailstorm in between recharges, propping it far above other talent combinations that take it.

Overall? Hailstorm is still pretty meh. What makes hailstorm weak with our 4p is not its lack of damage, but that it directly competes with the design of our 4p bonus and undermines your ability to generate and spend resource on Lava Lash. Boulderfist gets around this limitation by gating your resources.

You are still more than welcome to play a variety of builds. If you are pushing bleeding edge content, consider taking one of the top 6 builds for 0/4p. If you just want to have fun, and play what you want you are more then welcome - Many options are within 97%+ of the "current" best simming combination. The build you perform the best with may not be the top build on sims. Whatever you'll do the best numbers with is what you should play.

Something else worth noting is that these sims were done with a sample profile using BTI and SA, it's still possible that Windsong will gain more of a lead on Boulderfist if you have the trinket "Nightblooming Frond", and that Hailstorm will become viable with TN and/or Akainu's (although really, more TN than Akainu's).

These numbers will be refined for specific items/legendaries/etc as we get closer to the patch... but that's not out until Tuesday so for now be content with this :P

[Rallaster]

So as of right now with the current talent set and not BiS orange items we can take Boulderfist + Crashing Storm again? I fucking hate FoA personally. Windsong I can live without as well. Just wondering!

Thank you!

[Gunwolf]

Once you get your 4 set, you take Boulderfist and Tempest.
RIP Hot Hand/Windsong ; -;

It is worth noting that while these builds pick CS, they are not using CL rotationally.
Once you have the 4 set and Boulderfist, you stop spending any MS on aoe abilities because you want to spend it on Lava Lash.
CS remains the optimum talent because of the two casts of CL you do every time you use Feral Spirits, because a very small amount of DPS is more DPS than no DPS at all.

Without the support of legendaries (sims still not run) Hailstorm is still dead.

Two questions about the sim...

Why doesn't it test the final tier talents also? Is Landslide just that good? Or are the other two talents not programmed in properly or something? I assume a flat 8% agility is pretty easy to sim.

Also, what about sundering? Is it really that low dps? If we won't be using CL in rotation (outside of wolves) then the whole dot effect is wasted... wouldn't it make sense to either use CL once in a while for the aoe dot, or pick another talent like FoA or Sundering? Say we are in a single target fight... it seems like Sundering would be the obvious choice, esp if we can line it up with trinket procs... plus it uses MH attack so could proc SB.

I considered this as well, I mean I am not optimistic without a reason after all :P. But at the same time I have the feeling that geting into a place where we can compete in st dmg with specs that also have insane aoe or ranged cleave isn´t going to be enough. And I don´t see us geting into a better position that this with those 2% even if others move down.

But I actually expect another wave of hotfixes after first week or weeks of NH. The reason is that NH seems to be pretty cleave heavy with some heavy aoe thrown in as well. This is something I expect us to struggle with and if we don´t have top notch ST will cause us to fall out of the midpack right into bottom tier again. And this is what makes me afraid, because I have my personal doubts if it comes to Blizzards work in the class ans spec ballance department :P. But maybe they will do it better this time, after all our spec diversity seems to reach at a new high after the hotfixes and I like to see this as a good sign for the future.

Yea, there will def be a tuning patch like 1-2 weeks after Nighthold release. They do it everytime.... tho some people seem to forget that balance patches even exist or how often they do them (not you, I'm talking about all the recent hunter QQ lol).

Have faith tho... Blizz has been pretty good with balance IMO. The recent buffs to Elem are the most recent example, but they buffed Elem after EN back near legion release too. Same with warlocks, or frost dks and mages. I'm sure we'll get something nice, and while I do agree that our cleave/aoe is lacking a bit and could be better, it seems like our "niche" as Enhance is more single target focused so I don't expect to be catching up to the monks/dks/dh's that can do high cleave burst.

That being said, the 2-3% difference to the old build is negligible and everyone should carefully consider if it´s not worth wasting a couple of theoretical dps for a build that plays much smoother, thus probably gives more dps in a real scenario anyways and is much more fun on top of it.

Very true, and important to take into consideration. The differences don't seem that big so play what you like, what is fun, and what is easier for u. Chances are if a player has alot of extra abilities or cd's to manage and can't use them effectively then they will be hurting their dps more then if they just picked a simpler spec which would let them focus more on the encounter and maximizing their uptime.

Its also worth testing diff builds in game... do a couple dungeon runs with one spec then switch and try a few more and review ur logs (pref post them here!). The sims are a great guideline but they don't simulate the types of bosses/mobs u actually see in game, so actual results can vary. I think especially with how popular M+ is now this is even more true cause you get much more diversity in dungeons with lots of aoe on trash, but also single target or cleave for bosses... as well as dodging mechanics and less overall uptime on bosses ( 5+ min for a raid boss, but less then 3 min for dungeon boss).... which can all have an effect on what builds might be superior.

[YanquiUXO]

The "fixes" are proof positive that Blizzard has no idea what they are doing with enhancement whatsoever.

At least I don't have to use FoA anymore, thank God.

[Gunwolf]

The "fixes" are proof positive that Blizzard has no idea what they are doing with enhancement whatsoever.

At least I don't have to use FoA anymore, thank God.

What do u mean? They seem like good buffs to me... esp Doom Vortex finally gettin buffed so it doesnt' suck anymore. It seems like with the buffs we will go right back to the old spec... which might be bad for people who were looking forward to trying something new, tho it may just be bringing the talents more inline with each other and so easier to pick what u like as they intended.

Also... considering the fact that Enhance was like top third dps in EN and a solid dps for M+, I would say that Blizz does actually know what they are doing.

[hoochymamma]

IMO they just don't want us to cast any AOE spell on single target.
This was already true with 4 set, if they manage to make all of them less MS efficient on one target than LL then we'll stop cleaving while doing single target damage.

Which is like, actually pretty good tbh. Less accidental hits on ichors etc.

Too early for people to be guessing what our talents will be. Sims are being run. Will post them here when they are finished.

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Sim time boys:

With no tier pieces:



Looks like an expected gain of about 10k DPS!
We'll use basically the same talents as right now.
The gap between OC/FoA and BF/Tempest is smaller, but it's still 10k less DPS (as opposed to ~20k on live).

Note that this is without Legendaries. The Aikanu/TN/Hailstorm build is probably real.

Legendaries, 2P and 4P sims as they are done.

I rather lose that 10k dps and play with a spec i like, so old spec is back to the table

[Deleted]

Balance team has no clue whatsoever. Buffing something, nerfing again same thing, buffing same thing, nerfing same thing, buffing same thing.....I really dont know what they are doing, its simple evidence that we dont have a class dev so probably some DH dev noob is just playing with numbers.... This is a dead game to me...srry.

[Darleth]

What do u mean? They seem like good buffs to me... esp Doom Vortex finally gettin buffed so it doesnt' suck anymore. It seems like with the buffs we will go right back to the old spec... which might be bad for people who were looking forward to trying something new, tho it may just be bringing the talents more inline with each other and so easier to pick what u like as they intended.

Also... considering the fact that Enhance was like top third dps in EN and a solid dps for M+, I would say that Blizz does actually know what they are doing.

Doom Vortex buff is literally 0.3% more damage. Its still trash and doesn't fix the Traits main problem: it sometimes not even hitting the boss and resulting in zero damage overall. A wet noodle is still a wet noodle.
And no, they have no clue what they're doing. Just look at other classes. Take a look at hunters, they received a memeworthy 8% buff on all their spells... it doesn't fix their whole screwed up playstyle though, which is the MAIN PROBLEM that hunters have been complaining about since the patch hit. They've been off with balance since WoD released; MoP actually was the only addon where classes were somewhat close to each other, since then, balance has been pretty much downhill.

To your other question: Ascendance is still trash, Earthen Spike is still in testing as far as I remember it from discord. Sundering adds another button that is only good for Burst AoE. It's also another 20 MP that could go into another, harder hitting ability. It still has its knock-aside effect, which is pretty bad for PvE content in general if you split up a cluster of adds for example. And 40 seconds is too long of a cooldown to use it effectively in AoE.

The only good thing about this buff is, that literally everything gets buffed besides Fury of Air, which received another nerf. And Meme Vortex will still be Meme Vortex; they could buff it up to a way higher amount, to actually make it worthy of the status of being a gold trait and even then it would still need to actually hit a boss.

[Grumpypants]

so basically they killed foa again lol

thank god!

[Deleted]

Need even more buffs.

[PandoraHS]

Put random number into a calculator and you can be a Dev for Blizzard!

So, are we back to our old spec/rotation?

[Deleted]

Buffs... oh my! Not as much I would have expected however...

I would love to see firenova back, spreading that shit with flameshock+lavalash was golden!

[Deleted]

That's exactly what I said in another thread. They have NO idea how to balance or what is going on with a class/spec.

Another example:

Beast Mastery
Cobra Shot damage increased by 46%.

How bad do you have to be at balancing that after a whole PTR you end up buffing something for almost 50% 4 days after release? Lol.

I wish I could "like" posts on here, because this is exactly what I thought when I saw the hotfixes today. like this is coming after they set up a PTR to test all those changes, how in the world can a company like Blizzard be so incompetent? the biggest problem with this recent PTR was that they kept putting in partial changes so players couldn't even test anything in a proper context. it was also hilarious how readily some players ate that kind of behavior up, posting comments like "stop testing things on PTR, surely Blizzard is still working on changes". yea, don't test anything on the public test realm, surely this is the answer.
Legion is a clusterfuck full of RNG and balance ping pong

[Mhyroth]

I don't mind buffs/nerfs at all, but I seriously question the competence of anyone working for Blizzard if you have to buff/nerf Spells/Abilties by 20-50%.
You have an Alpha, Beta and a PTR to test those kind of things.
If I did my job that bad I would've been fired years ago.