DPS effects of the 5.0 patch

[Embermoon]

In short, I'm curious if the 5.0 patch will see a net increase in elemental and/or enhance dps, a break even, or a net loss of dps.

I've been told that the removal of the current talents will result in lower dps. My understanding, up to this point, is that Blizzard is increasing the damage done, by all of our baseline abilities, to compensate. Further, I would assume that the addition of some of the talents will have to be a net dps gain.

Anyone know?

[Endus]

In short, I'm curious if the 5.0 patch will see a net increase in elemental and/or enhance dps, a break even, or a net loss of dps.

I've been told that the removal of the current talents will result in lower dps. My understanding, up to this point, is that Blizzard is increasing the damage done, by all of our baseline abilities, to compensate. Further, I would assume that the addition of some of the talents will have to be a net dps gain.

Anyone know?

It's a bit early to say, but the idea with the change in the talent trees originally was to take all those passive talents, and either remove them across the board (meaning everyone sees a roughly similar reduction), or bake them into the spec passives or the abilities themselves; Lava Burst becoming an Ele/Resto ability only means they could just reduce the cast time on it directly, rather than having that reduction be a passive in Elemental's tree, for instance.

There's also the issue that certain classes will be more reliant on their level 87 abilities and level 90 talents than others, for DPS purposes. Shaman, for instance, are missing out on Ascendance at 87 and their level 90 talents, which are a solid DPS increase as well. Mages, to pick a counterexample, only lose Alter Time at 87, which is mostly a defensive CD, though their level 90 talents will be pretty integral to their mana regen, too.

It's definitely going to shake things up, but exactly how the chips will fall I don't think anyone's really looked into.

[Barky]

It will be interesting, I'm waiting for the QQ from some classes saying that damage is too low or whatever, because the difference is it will be balanced for 90 instead of 85, and some classes will be lacking in dps CD's like shamans.

I have a feeling that shamans are going to have lower dps than live at the moment, because Ascendence in my opinion is becoming more of a crutch. For it being so good, we've had to suffer a bit overall as a reult.

Not to mention hunters who will have to reforge a shit load of expertise to meet the cap.

[Namana]

I spent some time at the dummies on live and beta (freshly transferred, same gear, level 85, etc) and my dps (elemental) on live was maybe 200-300 higher. I know it was beta and not the pre-expansion patch, but if beta is an indication of level 85 balance, it looked about the same

[Deleted]

I have a feeling that shamans are going to have lower dps than live at the moment, because Ascendence in my opinion is becoming more of a crutch. For it being so good, we've had to suffer a bit overall as a reult.

I think the fact that our attack power and hit chance are going through the floor will be enough to see our dps drop. We might be getting a mastery buff, but will it counter the lost and smaller LB's we're getting as a result of the nerfs? (not to mention soloing will be worse off for a bit)

[Endus]

I think the fact that our attack power and hit chance are going through the floor will be enough to see our dps drop.

Err, what?

Enhancement is going from needing 17% Hit Rating and Expertise on top of that, to needing 7.5% Hit Rating and 7.5% Expertise, just to cap specials. This frees up more stat points for other stats, and the only damage you potentially lose is a few additional white hits. This will be a net gain for Enh.

We might be getting a mastery buff, but will it counter the lost and smaller LB's we're getting as a result of the nerfs? (not to mention soloing will be worse off for a bit)

There's a whole host of different scaling effects going on. Not to mention, certain new glyphs (healing storm particularly) will, if anything, BOOST soloing.

[Embermoon]

So, with expertise adding spell hit, is that value adding onto melee hit, in order to reach the 17% spell hit cap? If so, I can see where we'd lose white hits, which sucks.

On the other hand, if we're seeing added value from haste, plus more mastery (from reforging out of hit rating), then hopefully the gain will be greater than the lost white hits. I think my white hits are currently somewhere around 20% of my overall damage, if even that. It's definitely a shift towards active damage abilities.

As for losing the prime glyphs, has it been said if those glyphs will be converted into major glyphs, or completely removed? And, if they'll be completely removed, then would the prime glyph's benefit be instead built into the baseline ability?

[Endus]

So, with expertise adding spell hit, is that value adding onto melee hit, in order to reach the 17% spell hit cap? If so, I can see where we'd lose white hits, which sucks.

On the other hand, if we're seeing added value from haste, plus more mastery (from reforging out of hit rating), then hopefully the gain will be greater than the lost white hits. I think my white hits are currently somewhere around 20% of my overall damage, if even that. It's definitely a shift towards active damage abilities.

If you Reforge down to the new special ability hit cap, you'll lose white hits. If you stay at your current Hit/expertise levels, you'll probably GAIN white hits, since you're that much further over the cap, even with the Dual Wield change.

As for losing the prime glyphs, has it been said if those glyphs will be converted into major glyphs, or completely removed? And, if they'll be completely removed, then would the prime glyph's benefit be instead built into the baseline ability?

Depends on the glyph. If the item/spell ID is the same, it'll convert. Most of the straight DPS glyphs were baked into the abilities, but some were converted into Majors with a bit more of a tradeoff added to mitigate the boost they provide.

[Embermoon]

The main thing I'm curious to see, is how all of this will translate into raid dps, specifically heroic spine. We've finally downed blackhorn, and are about to start on spine. I'd hate to have 5.0 hit, and then find that we don't have a prayer of doing enough dps on the tendons.

Then again, I may have to go resto anyway, and with the buff to healing rains, healing may become a snap.

/wtb level 90

[Socialhealer]

guess elemental will be mostly hit hard by lower lightning bolt damage, and multiple lava burst nerfs, plus no lava burst glyph.

also much longer cooldown on elemental mastery due to no feedback, i expect elemental to struggle to push 40k @ ultraxion unless im forgetting something major.

[Roosky]

ele will have lava surge (now free insta cast lavabursts instead of just reseting cd), don't know if many people will go echo because of ele 2pc with EM but still echo is nice on certain fights like warmaster, we get the 900 mastery rating buff which is insaaaaaaaaane.

[kcsaenz]

It's a bit early to say, but the idea with the change in the talent trees originally was to take all those passive talents, and either remove them across the board (meaning everyone sees a roughly similar reduction), or bake them into the spec passives or the abilities themselves; Lava Burst becoming an Ele/Resto ability only means they could just reduce the cast time on it directly, rather than having that reduction be a passive in Elemental's tree, for instance.

There's also the issue that certain classes will be more reliant on their level 87 abilities and level 90 talents than others, for DPS purposes. Shaman, for instance, are missing out on Ascendance at 87 and their level 90 talents, which are a solid DPS increase as well. Mages, to pick a counterexample, only lose Alter Time at 87, which is mostly a defensive CD, though their level 90 talents will be pretty integral to their mana regen, too.

It's definitely going to shake things up, but exactly how the chips will fall I don't think anyone's really looked into.

First off on the mage front Alter time is a strong DPS CD if used right. When you get your procs lined up pop CDs and hit alter time. You then get 6 extra seconds on every CD and double use on your procs.

As far a enhancement Shamans go they feel more or less the same making it easy to adapt to. though the loss of the 20% Attack power and 20% haste buffs from our tookit will hurt if there isnt someone else in the group bringing them along with the nerf of that 20% attack power buff to 10% the complete removal of the Str/Agi buff you may see a drop depending on group makeup and gear.
On the up side our elementals are looking like stronger dps CDs do to not having to give up a buff or a dot to drop them.
We also see alot of DPS CDs meaning length of fights will affect our numbers a bit more.
Lastly we now crit for 200% with spells which should be a noticable bost

[Deleted]

guess elemental will be mostly hit hard by lower lightning bolt damage, and multiple lava burst nerfs, plus no lava burst glyph.

also much longer cooldown on elemental mastery due to no feedback, i expect elemental to struggle to push 40k @ ultraxion unless im forgetting something major.

In it's current state, both speccs are weaker than they are on live compared to other classes. I wouldn't say dps is lower, it might be higher since usually those addons always buff everyone's dps in several ways and veryone elese mngiht simply be buffed even more.

In the end, nearly every dps specc will gain a lot on it's way to 90. Hunters get their insane burst CD,Dks get their very strong execute and so on, many lvl 90 talents are a lot stronger and so more important than our lvl 90 talents,

[Asem]

ele will have lava surge (now free insta cast lavabursts instead of just reseting cd), don't know if many people will go echo because of ele 2pc with EM but still echo is nice on certain fights like warmaster, we get the 900 mastery rating buff which is insaaaaaaaaane.

^this, Id half expect it to be like pre-cata where things died extremely quick.

But the thing im absolutely going to dread(side topic here), 8 second CDs on Dispels?... Spine.. really? now we have to have a dispel rotation on a raid wipe mechanic lol >< I just kinda thought about this the other day.

With full BiS it doesnt really matter to me or most in our guild, but I guess for the couple of clears we'll have before MoP we'll be praying to the RNG gods before.
Wasnt sure if any blue or anyone addressed that already, couldnt find any info.

[Shauren]

^this, Id half expect it to be like pre-cata where things died extremely quick.

But the thing im absolutely going to dread(side topic here), 8 second CDs on Dispels?... Spine.. really? now we have to have a dispel rotation on a raid wipe mechanic lol >< I just kinda thought about this the other day.

With full BiS it doesnt really matter to me or most in our guild, but I guess for the couple of clears we'll have before MoP we'll be praying to the RNG gods before.
Wasnt sure if any blue or anyone addressed that already, couldnt find any info.

You missed a blue post about spine and dispel nerf - blood corruption will now morph into earth first time its dispelled

[Deleted]

^this, Id half expect it to be like pre-cata where things died extremely quick.

But the thing im absolutely going to dread(side topic here), 8 second CDs on Dispels?... Spine.. really? now we have to have a dispel rotation on a raid wipe mechanic lol >< I just kinda thought about this the other day.

With full BiS it doesnt really matter to me or most in our guild, but I guess for the couple of clears we'll have before MoP we'll be praying to the RNG gods before.
Wasnt sure if any blue or anyone addressed that already, couldnt find any info.

That's indeed a side effect of nearly every addon patch. There were always mechanics that didn't work after those patches because they changed some major things. But Bliizard was always pretty fast at hotfixing things when they were undoable. So even if it goes live like that, i bet that there will be some changes pretty soon.

But i believe that this has been already fixed.

[Aviators]

I will have a 100% uptime on time rupture come patch 5.0

[Grimbold21]

I'd like just some things cleared up/confirmed related to enhancement.

So according to you Endus, there will be a 10% drop (or 9.5) in the Hit and Expertise caps requirement. Boy that's gonna be a lot of free stats and perhaps replacing some hit gear (finally).

On another note, some people have been throwing around the possibility that come MoP, Enhancement's top stat (after caps) will be Haste. Is it possible to confirm this at this point? Because if it is so, i'll be ditching Fluid death - a trinket i use mainly for the hit - and perhaps get that trinket from one of HoT heroics, which i think has a haste on use bonus(?).

[Radux]

So according to you Endus, there will be a 10% drop (or 9.5) in the Hit and Expertise caps requirement. Boy that's gonna be a lot of free stats and perhaps replacing some hit gear (finally).

Yeah. Basically it works like this:

Melee Hit cap (7.5%)
Spell Hit cap (15%)
Dodge/Parry from behind (7.5%)

Hit grants both melee and spell hit. Expertise grants dodge/parry reduction, as well as grants spell hit.

That means Enhancement only needs 7.5% hit and 7.5% expertise to get melee (special) hit cap, spell hit cap, and not able to be dodged/parried from behind the boss.

[Deleted]

I'd like just some things cleared up/confirmed related to enhancement.

So according to you Endus, there will be a 10% drop (or 9.5) in the Hit and Expertise caps requirement. Boy that's gonna be a lot of free stats and perhaps replacing some hit gear (finally).

On another note, some people have been throwing around the possibility that come MoP, Enhancement's top stat (after caps) will be Haste. Is it possible to confirm this at this point? Because if it is so, i'll be ditching Fluid death - a trinket i use mainly for the hit - and perhaps get that trinket from one of HoT heroics, which i think has a haste on use bonus(?).

I suupose that haste has lost a lot of in the last patch. Our best haste scaling ablities fire elemental and lightning bolt got enormous nerfs and haste was anyways only slgithly higher. I'd expect mastery to be a winner again, but haste still pretty good (slightly depending on what talents you pick up, haste migh still be very close).