[OFFICIAL] MoP Beta Build Changes Discussion Thread

[Jigawatts]

Confirmed; the LB change is not actual, we've still got a 2s cast, Elemental Fury still reduces the cast. Updating the megapost soon.

Nzall, that would be an issue with wowhead, it's tagged properly on wowdb and in the beta.

WHAT!?! you didn't believe me Endus, how can our relationship flourish with this amount of distrust!

[Endus]

I'm a scientist. I don't believe anything until I can independently confirm it.

[Deleted]

I'm a scientist. I don't believe anything until I can independently confirm it.

That would make you a pretty bad scientist, then, if that's the case.

[Deleted]

I'm very disappointed that Elemental Blast was changed from % based to a flat proc. This will hurt our scaling and the usability of the skill further in the expansion.
That is added to the fact that our mastery buff is the only buff that is not % based and doesn't scale.

[Endus]

I'm very disappointed that Elemental Blast was changed from % based to a flat proc. This will hurt our scaling and the usability of the skill further in the expansion.
That is added to the fact that our mastery buff is the only buff that is not % based and doesn't scale.

Yeah, just like every damage and healing spell in the game, that works off a flat damage number and doesn't scale with level at all.

Oh wait, spells don't work that way, and you're overreacting for no reason whatsoever.

[Omanley]

Anyone noticed that little detail about elemental shields? As it is worded, it sounds like enhance can have a resto's earth shield on himself, all the while retaining his lightning shield. That is gonna make pairing up resto with other shamans in pvp a little more enjoyable, I'd say.

Just a little thing, but nice they finally "fixed" that design flaw.

[Cai]

Anyone noticed that little detail about elemental shields? As it is worded, it sounds like enhance can have a resto's earth shield on himself, all the while retaining his lightning shield. That is gonna make pairing up resto with other shamans in pvp a little more enjoyable, I'd say.

Just a little thing, but nice they finally "fixed" that design flaw.

I seen that, and I am seriously hoping that it works. Someone test this out FOR SCIENCE!!

[Seriss]

I've been celebrating since I read it: no more water shield charges! The amount of GCDs that I will be using to do something that's actually useful!!! Mind-boggling! *dances happily*

Oh and I like how Glyph of Chaining was changed. It sounds much more reasonable to double the jump distance and add a 4s cd than to decrease its healing power. Chain-heal spam is bad style anyway, and this encourages us to actually use up all the lovely tidal waves charges that we get. I like

[Radux]

I think my problem as Resto and the Water Shield change will be trying to break my habit of refreshing that bastard every free GCD. TBC produced a nasty habit for that.

First world problems, eh?

[Navitas]

I think my problem as Resto and the Water Shield change will be trying to break my habit of refreshing that bastard every free GCD. TBC produced a nasty habit for that.

First world problems, eh?

Change the keybind for Heroism and you'll learn pretty quickly not to press it

[Cai]

I think my problem as Resto and the Water Shield change will be trying to break my habit of refreshing that bastard every free GCD. TBC produced a nasty habit for that.

First world problems, eh?

I still refresh LS every chance i get.

[Deleted]

Yeah, just like every damage and healing spell in the game, that works off a flat damage number and doesn't scale with level at all.

Oh wait, spells don't work that way, and you're overreacting for no reason whatsoever.

The problem is not scaling with lvl, but scaling with gear at max lvl. At the start of the expand it is much more valuable then in the end if it doesn't scale with gear. Maybe it is just me, but I find that annoying.

[Protoman]

Just logged in and did some testing on elemental.

1) Lightning Bolt cast time is the same as always.
2) Buffs got fixed! You can now see your Burning Wrath, Grace of Air and our haste buff is in (Elemental Oath). They also changed the mastery buff to show mastery rating, which is infinitely less confusing for people. Still the same benefit. No more "WHY DOES IT ONLY GIVE 5 MASTERY" confusion.
3) Oh my hell no more Lightning Shield charges. I wiped out my LS glyph and confirmed that you will no longer lose stacks when getting hit. Buff starts at 1 stack (so it doesn't show a number at all). Starts at 2 once Rolling Thunder procs and the stacks stay until Fulmination. Yeeeeeee haw, bitches.
4) I'll need to run Temple of the Jade Dragon to really get a better feel for our mana adjustments.

Also FYI, they fixed the Jade Witch quest if anyone was stuck there.

As for some of the other changes:

Shields having no charges - YES! YES! YES! YES! (etc) - big fan of this.
Astral Recall Glyph - much more preferable to a reduction in cast time.

Not sure what the Enhance Mastery one is all about, but seeing as Enhance can't benefit from spellpower effects, I assume it's just a way of retuning numbers.

Good to hear that LB is still 2.5-2sec cast, we needed a slower cast/higher damage spell. The Enh Mastery "nerf" confused me as well, had no idea SP was even a factor in it....not sure what that is all about but I did see a few other specs have similar nerfs.

Having 3 buffs out at once is pretty sweet, I thought Haste+Mastery would be exclusive with each other but I guess not. That plus stormlash....Shaman will be a nice addition for 10mans. Still hoping they give Enh 10%AP personal buff.

I am SUPER excited about them removing the charges from WS+LS too. People thought I was nuts to even suggest the idea but I am SO glad they actually did it. We can finally free up some gcds for other things along with a steady source of regen. I expect some kind of tweaking to TC as well since WS will have 100% uptime.....it may even be a base passive for Resto or some kind of buff they can turn on or off. This is freeing up glyph slots for more choices as well.

Anyone noticed that little detail about elemental shields? As it is worded, it sounds like enhance can have a resto's earth shield on himself, all the while retaining his lightning shield. That is gonna make pairing up resto with other shamans in pvp a little more enjoyable, I'd say.

Just a little thing, but nice they finally "fixed" that design flaw.

Yea I think that's right, ES won't overwrite our current elem shield....only WS+LS are exclusive with each other.

"Your Lightning Shield can no longer drop below 3 charges from dealing damage to attackers."
Afaik, when we use Fulmination and we'll be at 1stack still as its not the shield dealing the dmg, after that if we deal dmg with a LS proc then we'll drop to zero stacks as we're alrdy below the 3 for the glyph to work.

I'm pretty sure currently on beta it will work like this, tho need to double check once i get time. I will assume the glyph will just be changed to say 1 stack instead.
They basiaclly just changed it from use using 3-9 stacks to 1-7 stacks.

Yes, exactly. It wont be reduced by damage anymore since that was a LS effect, and now Fulm is a different, unique buff. I wonder what Ele's new PVP set bonus will be, if we even get those anymore.

I'm very disappointed that Elemental Blast was changed from % based to a flat proc. This will hurt our scaling and the usability of the skill further in the expansion.
That is added to the fact that our mastery buff is the only buff that is not % based and doesn't scale.

Well, I think it should basically be the same % bonus thru all gear levels until you reach the stat decay for mastery. So if that number somehow equals 3 Mastery, whatever current mastery we have it will be +3 until we reach some soft cap where both the buff and extra mastery from gear will be less effective. Not 100% sure thats how it works tho.

[Manu9]

The LS glyph changed to 1 stack is not the way to go, it will be an ele only glyph then, and frankly near useless.

[Sarevokcz]

The problem is not scaling with lvl, but scaling with gear at max lvl. At the start of the expand it is much more valuable then in the end if it doesn't scale with gear. Maybe it is just me, but I find that annoying.

that is true only for haste, as haste stacks multiplicatively and 5% haste is more valuable the more haste you get, 2700 mastery or 5% mastery are equal

[Deleted]

that is true only for haste, as haste stacks multiplicatively and 5% haste is more valuable the more haste you get, 2700 mastery or 5% mastery are equal

Maybe I don't understand how it works, but if you have 1000 mastery rating at the start of the expansion 5% is 50, and if you have 2000 (from higher illv gear) at the end it is 100. Please explain me where I'm making mistake.

[Sarevokcz]

Maybe I don't understand how it works, but if you have 1000 mastery rating at the start of the expansion 5% is 50, and if you have 2000 (from higher illv gear) at the end it is 100. Please explain me where I'm making mistake.

it isnt 5% from the mastery you got, its just flat 5% (or just 5, I prefer it with the %) mastery, that 5% mastery will be 10% overload no matter how good your gear is
the 5% haste, on the other hand, is multiplicative with the haste you already got, so you get 5% + 5% from the haste you already have. if you have 20% haste unbuffed, the 5% haste buff will not only give you 5% more, but also 5% from the 20%, which is 1%, so in the end, you get 26%, which is more powerful that what would rating equal to 5% be.

[Jigawatts]

Maybe I don't understand how it works, but if you have 1000 mastery rating at the start of the expansion 5% is 50, and if you have 2000 (from higher illv gear) at the end it is 100. Please explain me where I'm making mistake.

So before it was 5 Mastery not 5% Mastery. Mastery doesn't work quite like haste and crit, you don't really compile it by percentages. Such as Elementals Mastery reads like this:

Elemental Overload
Grants a 16% chance for Elemental Overload to occur. Elemental Overload causes a Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, or Lava Burst spell you cast to trigger a second, similar spell on the same target at no additional cost that causes 75% of normal damage and no threat. Each point of Mastery increases the chance of Elemental Overload by an additional 2%.

That would mean for an Elemental shaman we would get 10% increase to Elemental Overload from 5 mastery. From my understanding the new flat value is the equivalent to 5 Mastery, although I have not tested it and am not sure. Hope this helps.

[Deleted]

I guess I got it wrong but % confused me. So 5 mastery = 5% mastery?
For me that were 2 different effects.

[Endus]

that is true only for haste, as haste stacks multiplicatively and 5% haste is more valuable the more haste you get, 2700 mastery or 5% mastery are equal

This is just about completely backwards.

All stats scale linearly. Buffs often stack multiplicatively; Heroism and Wrath of Air both do, for Haste, for instance. But as those buffs are static percentages, Haste still scales linearly with gear.

To make matters worse, Haste has specific caps in value, particularly 100% Spell Haste, where your Lightning Bolt cast times dip below the GCD, meaning you're limited by that 1s GCD rather than the cast time. Stacking more Haste so that you're over that point, under a stacked Herolust/EM for instance, means you're LOSING value from Haste.

5% Mastery would scale in EXACTLY the same way that 5% Haste does. +5 Mastery or +2717 Mastery Rating are what are effectively the same, and those are static values, which is why they scale linearly rather than multiplicatively. It has NOTHING to do with the stats themselves, only the way the buffs apply their benefits.

it isnt 5% from the mastery you got, its just flat 5% (or just 5, I prefer it with the %) mastery

Those two are NOT the same thing.

For Elemental in particular, +5 Mastery is +10% chance for overload. COMPLETELY different than what you're talking about, and even that +10% chance to overload is NOT the same as +5% Mastery.

You're equating a multiplier with an addition, and that doesn't work unless both numbers are 2 and only then because those unrelated curves have to cross somewhere.