New wild call on PTR

[Trishell]

So i hopped on last night to test this out (NON Shoulder owner) and the new wild call certainly does make the rotation a lot smoother and cuts down a lot of downtime. I was able to get to 3 stacks of dire frenzy frequently but however maintaining for longer than a minute will not be viable unless you have shoulders. Anyone else test this out??

[ozusteapot]

Glad to hear it! Hopefully they wont further nerf the spec bedore the patch goes live.

[Renley]

I'll have to test when I get home. I've heard the complete opposite from several people.

[Steridin]

I think the stats have certain effect on it as well. Owtp would prolly fancy crit much higher than other counterpart. I'll prolly test out with my high crit (44-45%) set later and see how long it can maintain.

[Deleted]

that moment when u realize that your idea that u sub in atleast a year ago finally is not fallin on deaf ears.... but too late is too late i dont play anymore

[JoshuaNLG]

Even with the shoulders and using owtp, maintaining 3 stacks was not possible, it wasn't proccing enough to give the cd reductions, and i didn't have time to bank charges due to the procs not happening enough.

Overall i dislike the change, it slows down the spec and gives it even more downtime.

[gushDH]

I don't understand why they changed the numbers that way. It used to be 20% chance that a crit will reset the wild call, hence 12sec at best. Now it will be 40% chance that a crit will reduce the cd by 3sec at best. If they wanted to keep times we press wild call about the same, shouldn't the chance be at least 60%? I understand that we lose much less from each reset, but it still seems like we lost much more in total.

[Dracodraco]

I don't understand why they changed the numbers that way. It used to be 20% chance that a crit will reset the wild call, hence 12sec at best. Now it will be 40% chance that a crit will reduce the cd by 3sec at best. If they wanted to keep times we press wild call about the same, shouldn't the chance be at least 60%? I understand that we lose much less from each reset, but it still seems like we lost much more in total.

Your issue is that you're comparing "at best" scenarios, while the change tries to hit the middle ground. Unless you owned the shoulders, you weren't ALWAYS getting a 12 sec reduction - you'd get anyhwere from 12 (best case, literally just fired it off) to 0 (worst case, just got off CD and haven't had a global to fire it off yet). Thus giving it a double-chance to proc, with 3 secs means an average of 6 seconds - just like it was previously.

This is why people say the mantle has been nerfed; Instead of guaranteed +12 second reset, you now get an average of 6 seconds reset, with or without the mantle. Mantle is only useful for banking charges for burst/3 stacking a expose phase, and in the scenario that you got a proc with 1-2 seconds left on DB's CD now.

[gushDH]

Your issue is that you're comparing "at best" scenarios, while the change tries to hit the middle ground. Unless you owned the shoulders, you weren't ALWAYS getting a 12 sec reduction - you'd get anyhwere from 12 (best case, literally just fired it off) to 0 (worst case, just got off CD and haven't had a global to fire it off yet). Thus giving it a double-chance to proc, with 3 secs means an average of 6 seconds - just like it was previously.

This is why people say the mantle has been nerfed; Instead of guaranteed +12 second reset, you now get an average of 6 seconds reset, with or without the mantle. Mantle is only useful for banking charges for burst/3 stacking a expose phase, and in the scenario that you got a proc with 1-2 seconds left on DB's CD now.

The problem is, the way they fix is by calculating that on average we get 6sec of cooldown reset and they put it as a more predictable cooldown reduction. So they fix nothing, the spec will be exactly the same, we just won't feel like we lose that much, but on average it will be the same. So in my opinion a pointless change.

[Aldare]

That's awful. They should use the shoulders as a baseline and make the new Wild Call take off 6 seconds.

[Dracodraco]

The problem is, the way they fix is by calculating that on average we get 6sec of cooldown reset and they put it as a more predictable cooldown reduction. So they fix nothing, the spec will be exactly the same, we just won't feel like we lose that much, but on average it will be the same. So in my opinion a pointless change.

The change is made so that the shoulders do not feel mandatory. For anyone with the shoulders, this change is pointless and will either yield a DPS loss (if you've got no other good legendary to switch it for), or at best, you stay neutral.
For anyone WITHOUT the shoulders, this is a significant buff as you no longer need them to be able to take full advantage of your dire beast resets. It's that simple, really; It's not pointless at all. The only alternative without keeping this huge discrepancy in power would be what Aldare suggests:

That's awful. They should use the shoulders as a baseline and make the new Wild Call take off 6 seconds.

And they're clearly not willing to do this, so eh. Work with what you've got.

[Krazzorx]

I think one problem with making the shoulders baseline is in a vacuum it'd be a massive dps increase (essentially 3 legendaries equipped) and then they'd have to nerf us to compensate which I don't trust them to do in a controlled manner. Would expect BM to be nerfed to EN levels.

[JoshuaNLG]

I think one problem with making the shoulders baseline is in a vacuum it'd be a massive dps increase (essentially 3 legendaries equipped) and then they'd have to nerf us to compensate which I don't trust them to do in a controlled manner. Would expect BM to be nerfed to EN levels.

They wouldn't need to nerf a thing, even with the shoulders BM aren't performing as high as some other classes are, but if they DID feel the need to nerf us, I'd take a damage hit over a gameplay change any day.

[Gaboar]

Would this change mean shoulders and boots with new OwtP would be able to pump out heaps of kill commands? Even without OwtP?
Enlighten me...

[BendakWoW]

I'm not a fan at all. There was a lot more downtime in the rotation (using shoulders). The fun procs are gone. Everything felt slow.

In the crit owtp/stomp build, I'm casting about 20% fewer Dire Beasts compared to live. Bestial Wrath uptime down by about 10%. 50k dps loss in PTR sim.

In the DF/BF build, it's less noticeable in gameplay, but there is still a definite DPS nerf, about 30k for me in sims.

It's still a DPS nerf without shoulders as well, just not to the same degree (assuming the sims are correct at this stage). There needs to be some serious number tuning here if they're going to stick with this garbage iteration. It would be so much simpler to make 2 charges baseline and change the shoulders. But no, let's just complicate it and introduce even more downtime.

[Turtel]

The change is made so that the shoulders do not feel mandatory. For anyone with the shoulders, this change is pointless and will either yield a DPS loss (if you've got no other good legendary to switch it for), or at best, you stay neutral.
For anyone WITHOUT the shoulders, this is a significant buff as you no longer need them to be able to take full advantage of your dire beast resets. It's that simple, really; It's not pointless at all.

It's definitely not a significant buff for those without the shoulders, and it's most likely a nerf. The 6 second calculated average already factors in the fact that you waste some of the cooldown reduction, so reducing the Wild Call procs to a 3 second reduction is actually more than halving the effectiveness of each proc. To give comparison:

Without the shoulders:
Patch 7.2: Wild Call procs reduce Dire Beast cooldown by 12 seconds, but average to 6 seconds due to some procs being wasted.
Patch 7.2.5: Wild Call procs reduce Dire Beast cooldown by 3 seconds, but average to 2.625 seconds due to some procs being wasted.

The proc rate has been doubled, but the average cooldown reduction has been reduced by more than half. This means you will be casting Dire Beast less often in patch 7.2.5 than in patch 7.2 even if you didn't have the shoulders. It's strictly a nerf if you were taking Stomp. For Dire Frenzy, it's most likely nerf, but the more even distribution of Dire Frenzy casts may allow you to reach 2 stacks of Dire Frenzy more often, which could be enough to offset the reduced amount of times you'll cast it, but I doubt it.

[Dracodraco]

It's definitely not a significant buff for those without the shoulders, and it's most likely a nerf. The 6 second calculated average already factors in the fact that you waste some of the cooldown reduction, so reducing the Wild Call procs to a 3 second reduction is actually more than halving the effectiveness of each proc. To give comparison:

Without the shoulders:
Patch 7.2: Wild Call procs reduce Dire Beast cooldown by 12 seconds, but average to 6 seconds due to some procs being wasted.
Patch 7.2.5: Wild Call procs reduce Dire Beast cooldown by 3 seconds, but average to 2.625 seconds due to some procs being wasted.

The proc rate has been doubled, but the average cooldown reduction has been reduced by more than half. This means you will be casting Dire Beast less often in patch 7.2.5 than in patch 7.2 even if you didn't have the shoulders. It's strictly a nerf if you were taking Stomp. For Dire Frenzy, it's most likely nerf, but the more even distribution of Dire Frenzy casts may allow you to reach 2 stacks of Dire Frenzy more often, which could be enough to offset the reduced amount of times you'll cast it, but I doubt it.

I mean, nobody actually used Stomp anymore, did they? It'll be good for the better talent (DF), and it nerfing the "bad" option a little probably isn't a concern. Do also keep in mind that while the average may have been lowered by more than it was buffed, it's going to become much more consistent - there should be much less of a "feast or famine" feel with lucky streaks.

That being said, it might be an overall small nerf, which in the big picture, is probably fine. BM isn't "top" dog, but on the other hand, it has benefits that no other spec does (EG: Mobility) that offsets not being "top". As long as BM remains mid table instead of upper mid table, it'll be absolutely fine.

[Shakou]

So i hopped on last night to test this out (NON Shoulder owner) and the new wild call certainly does make the rotation a lot smoother and cuts down a lot of downtime. I was able to get to 3 stacks of dire frenzy frequently but however maintaining for longer than a minute will not be viable unless you have shoulders. Anyone else test this out??

FYI there is a legendary vendor in dalaran on PTR. So go ahead and buy those shoulders and try it out that way.

[Gaboar]

I mean, nobody actually used Stomp anymore, did they? It'll be good for the better talent (DF), and it nerfing the "bad" option a little probably isn't a concern. Do also keep in mind that while the average may have been lowered by more than it was buffed, it's going to become much more consistent - there should be much less of a "feast or famine" feel with lucky streaks.

That being said, it might be an overall small nerf, which in the big picture, is probably fine. BM isn't "top" dog, but on the other hand, it has benefits that no other spec does (EG: Mobility) that offsets not being "top". As long as BM remains mid table instead of upper mid table, it'll be absolutely fine.

I prefer upper mid table pls... :P But seriously can someone please answer my previous question 4 posts up?

[Shakou]

I think one problem with making the shoulders baseline is in a vacuum it'd be a massive dps increase (essentially 3 legendaries equipped) and then they'd have to nerf us to compensate which I don't trust them to do in a controlled manner. Would expect BM to be nerfed to EN levels.

LOL no, BM is not that good it's just better on average than other hunter specs (currently) hunters are still not very good on the whole. The proper thing to do here would be to rethink some of the nerfs they already did and make shoulders perhaps not baseline, but maybe optional with a talent. As it is the changes are only going to make the shoulders better than they currently are.