(Resto) Aman's hu's Wisdom nerfed from cap of +15s to +9s on PTR.

[clavarnway]

Thoughts? Warranted? Expected?

[Tiberria]

It was already going to be all but unusable in 7.2.5 because

(1) the current 4 piece is a big part of why it's so strong currently, and we will be dropping that
(2) with T20 out, you can use 2 pc + 4 pc, but equipping a legendary in any tier slot prevents that. If a 2 pc is worth +3% healing (and T19 2 pc is close to that), a legendary that takes up a tier slot has to do 3% more output than something like a ring or neck that doesn't.

The shoulders were already going to lose like 30% of their value without T19 4pc, and would have been middle of the pack. This nerfs them a further 40% across the board, making them basically completely worthless/unusable. Was it warranted? If you just have a knee jerk reaction to the top parsing legendary, maybe. But, doing so is ignorant of the fact that the real issue is the 4 piece interaction, as well as the fact that this nerf just makes them back to being a dead legendary in 7.2.5.

With how it looks right now for 7.2.5, we are only going to have 4 legendary options that aren't garbage. Velen's is still clear BiS. For the second slot, it's between Tearstone, Prydaz and the belt, depending on what type of healing you want/need and the damage patterns of the fight. The other 7 legendaries are basically trash.

[Cheze]

Pretty much everybody seems to be using shoulders currently, so them being targeted for a nerf was reasonable.

calling them unusable, garbage and such based on this is pretty silly; they will still contribute a lot of extra uptime (especially combined with deep rooted) and will probably still be one of the better choices in situations where we use germination. They will be better than anything but the neck/trinket and maybe the belt.

I also expect the 2p/4p combo to be nerfed before tomb hits live, since I doubt blizzard want people carrying along a NH two piece for the entirety of the next tier.

[Tiberria]

Pretty much everybody seems to be using shoulders currently, so them being targeted for a nerf was reasonable.

calling them unusable, garbage and such based on this is pretty silly; they will still contribute a lot of extra uptime (especially combined with deep rooted) and will probably still be one of the better choices in situations where we use germination. They will be better than anything but the neck/trinket and maybe the belt.

I also expect the 2p/4p combo to be nerfed before tomb hits live, since I doubt blizzard want people carrying along a NH two piece for the entirety of the next tier.

The fact that everyone is using them now is irrelevant; they are making these balance adjustments for 7.2.5. You could pretty much guarantee that very few would still be using the shoulders even if they weren't changed at all, because of the loss of being able to go 4pc + 2pc plus the fact that not having T19 4pc nerfs them very substantially as is. Putting a 40% nerf on top of that just makes them worthless if you have any of the top 4 legendary options. It might have been warranted to hotfix nerf them on live, but they didn't need a nerf given that 7.2.5 inherently nerfs them.

Also, BTW, they have been asked repeatedly (on at least 2 live Q&A) about the 4pc+2pc thing and have said they have no problem with it, and no plans to change it, because they like the extra gearing options it provides. Therefore, I wouldn't count on seeing it get changed. People will just use the 2 highest ilvl pieces of T19 they can get, and T20 in all other tier slots, making all legendaries that use a tier slot highly suboptimal and bottom of the barrel by default.

Here is my updated 7.2.5 legendary ranking.

Tier 1
1. Velen's

Tier 2
2. Prydaz
3. Belt
4. Tearstone

Tier 3
5. Wrists
6. Sephuz
7. Tranq boots

Trash Tier
8. Crafted boots
9. Shoulders
10. Ekowraith
11. Gloves

Basically, anything in a tier slot creates -~3% throughput from losing T19 2pc, so shoulders/Ekowraith join the gloves as total trash.

[Deleted]

with both set bonuses on t20 requiring you to use swiftmend and more frequently surely the bracers will be up there with the best of them now?

[Tiberria]

with both set bonuses on t20 requiring you to use swiftmend and more frequently surely the bracers will be up there with the best of them now?

Nope - the T20 set bonuses actually make the bracers much less valuable/usable in any practical situation. The issue is - the only way to get the most out of the bracers is using Swiftmend to extend CW. Both of them are 30 second CDs, so you just keep them synced. With the Swiftmend CD reduction from the T20 2 pc, it desyncs the CDs of those two spells, leaving you with two bad choices
(1) Just sit on Swiftmend for the full 30 seconds still to extend CW, even though T20 2pc reduces the CD. By doing this, you're still getting the most out of the bracers, but you are making your 2 piece bonus essentially useless, and you're also gutting the value you get out of the 4 piece, because you won't be using SM as often.
(2) Just forget about trying to keep CW and SM synced and use SM on near CD to max your 2 pc/4pc value. This is going to drastically reduce the value you get from the bracers, because +10 seconds on CW is something like 8 times as valuable as +10 seconds on LB, Rejuv, etc. You're probably cutting your bracer healing in half or less by doing this.

The problem is, why even use the bracers in the first place when you need to make one of those bad tradeoffs vs just using another legendary like Prydaz or the belt or Tearstone that doesn't have those downsides? Sure, in some theoretical world where you can always get your Swiftmend down to a 15-16 sec CD through perfect usage on low health targets, you could in theory still do SM+CW every 30 seconds, plus fit a second SM in between that 30 second window. I don't think that's going to be at all realistic in an actual fight though, and if you try doing it, you're likely to just end up with the spells badly desynced 90% of the time.

TLDR, Bracers have no real use case once you have T20 2pc and up and probably shouldn't be used. They still aren't as terrible as the tier slot legendaries, because at least they don't cause you to lose a whole set bonus, but they are also going to be pretty mediocre.

I can't see a legitimate use case for any of the legendaries outside the top 4 come T20/7.2.5. Maybe Sephuz on a fight with constant dispels or Tranq boots on a fight where you are taking Inner Peace and constantly have the raid at low health during your Tranqs. Those are likely 1 per tier fights at best though. Outside of that, we are basically down to 4 viable legendaries.

[Cheze]

it's fine to think the shoulders will be worse than belt/prydaz but putting them on the level of the chest/gloves is silly

the ring contributes about five rejuvs per minute, assuming you use WG on CD. The shoulders will contribute way more uptime assuming you're casting a meaningful amount of rejuvs and give you bonus int.

[Maelstrom51]

the ring contributes about five rejuvs per minute, assuming you use WG on CD. The shoulders will contribute way more uptime assuming you're casting a meaningful amount of rejuvs and give you bonus int.

Shoulders have to compete with 2pc T19 though.

Also, losing 4pc T19 will lower the value of shoulders immensely, since they had a positive feedback loop together.

[Deleted]

well if u use CW and dont use the bracers to extend its duration then ur already not missing out on anything? just cause u wont get the best use out of it, it doesn't nessessarilly mean its useless. i was thinking more along the lines of using 2 SM charges wich still has its life saving capabilities plus the chance of getting near 3 SM's in its 27sec cd from the 2p and so the potential extra efflo healing increase from the 4p could be huge while still keeping somewhat of a decent benefit from a legendary that doesent take up a tier piece and can save time and mana re applying hots.

i guess ill just have to wait and see for myself what its like with the 4p/2p but im sure i'd do far more healing sniping people with swiftmends more often and increasing the efflo heal, rather than waiting for the tank to nearly be dieing befor i use CW on him once every 30sec at most, or relying on a lifebloom proc from the belt wich is probly as useful as relying on the final heal of lifebloom its self.

[Maelstrom51]

Bracers are super garbage if you don't use them to extend CW though. They really conflict with the 2/4pc T20 set.

[Deleted]

thanks for repeating the guy i just replyed to u obviously payed alot of attention as to what i was trying to say here. hence why im saying use the 2 switmend charges? and get rid of CW since lets face it u only ever use CW when the tanks about to die and in wich case the heal ticks over 8 sec, in half that time the tank is either healed full or dead, and doesent usually need CW to be refreshed unless ur the only healer in the group.

also what i mean by 4p/2p is 4p t20 2p t19 so no more shoulds
altho i'll still use them untill i get 4p t20 since they still have alot more value for small raids and groups where u can blanket everyone with rejuvs

[fallenangel-succ]

Using t19 is not a 3% throughput gain because they will be a lower item level, very most likely.
This is also not a 40% nerf to the shoulders, as it only affects the last 2 extra ticks.

[Tiberria]

Using t19 is not a 3% throughput gain because they will be a lower item level, very most likely.
This is also not a 40% nerf to the shoulders, as it only affects the last 2 extra ticks.

It affects the last 2 extra ticks out of 5 total ticks. Therefore, it absolutely is a 40% raw/potential throughput nerf.

[fallenangel-succ]

No it's not, because you won't always get the extra ticks, and even if you do, it might just expire without achieving anything. The removal of 4pt19 is not enough, and they needed the extra nerf. It's possible this is too heavy handed, but it won't be decided here.
It's no surprise the best legendaries buff our bread and butter heals (ring, shoulders) or just across the board (trinket). That alone gives them a lot of strength.

[Tiberria]

No it's not, because you won't always get the extra ticks, and even if you do, it might just expire without achieving anything. The removal of 4pt19 is not enough, and they needed the extra nerf. It's possible this is too heavy handed, but it won't be decided here.
It's no surprise the best legendaries buff our bread and butter heals (ring, shoulders) or just across the board (trinket). That alone gives them a lot of strength.

It nerfs the cases where you are getting the most out of the shoulders by 40%. Sure, there will be cases where it doesn't extend them at all because people are under 100% the whole 19 seconds. But, how common are those? And how often does it currently only extend a Rejuv for 9 seconds when it would otherwise extend one for 15? Those are the only cases where the nerf doesn't mean anything, and I suspect they are a fraction of the total. Most of the time, for most use cases, the shoulders take a 40% hit. Plus, one of the whole reasons for using them in the first place is pre-hotting to maximize the total Rejuv effects active. This is directly a 40% hit on that strategy, because you will have less total active Rejuv effects, less mastery gain, less need to run Germination over another talent, etc. They are being gutted - period, end of discussion.

[fallenangel-succ]

Seeing as shoulders are about twice as strong as the 2nd legendary, that's not so bad.
But lets wait for the 7.2.5 parses. I'm sure we'll have more shoulder parses than gloves.

[Darksun80]

I had legendaries in this order since expansion release

belt-->boots-->Sephuz-->gloves --> Shoulders --> (patch hit)--> Prydaz --> Chest --> Velen

So till patch i had pretty bad legendaries that didnt help about anything at all Was really happy with t19 4pc + shoulders, now they will be far less usefull without set andd nerf... they should have waited for t20's first to see if people would continue to use it more than others.

[Deleted]

there are a lot of other factors that makes the value of t19 2pc or the tier-slot legendaries not that obvious. Like you definitely need them high titanforged first of all, then it locks you out of jacin's, or DoS which are decent power-level items, so if the shoulders work out fine still there are a few things to compensate for the t19 2pc. what's definitely true is that the shoulders will be worse anyway without the 4pc synergy so I'm not happy about this. just like the tearstone nerf it's just useless but whatever.

[Kluian05]

I'm not surprised by the nerf, this legendary was ridiculously strong.