HoTW hidden nerf

[Faithshield]

With the kind of damage that is being reported it makes you wonder how this was overlooked during the whole of beta? Seemed everyone was all over Dream of Cenarius just because it was all the talk, and people wrote off HoTW without even trying it. I always thought it sounded powerful (and great utility).

[baver]

Don't be too quick to judge, it's still hitting around 120-150k normal hits on bosses, if my trinkets proc agi it goes up to about 170-180k and crits are still over 300k, it's still a very healthy burst for fights like elegon.

From my 730k crits yesterday to 470k today is kinda big deal, lost like 10k dps from last week on gara'jal from just this nerf.

Also got 2 huge dps upgrades today befor todays kill :/

[exochaft]

With the kind of damage that is being reported it makes you wonder how this was overlooked during the whole of beta? Seemed everyone was all over Dream of Cenarius just because it was all the talk, and people wrote off HoTW without even trying it. I always thought it sounded powerful (and great utility).

Well, the irony was that HotW wasn't overlooked on the beta... in fact, they made a blue post stating that they weren't concerned about it ("it" meaning the damage output, not the passive) during beta testing. The problem, like many, is that HotW was likely fine until people start doing things that aren't intended... or PvP complaints arise.

HotW was likely balanced for the most part in the realm of PvE, because Blizz was looking well into the raiding future when considering how balanced it was. I'll admit HotW for a Feral is pretty powerful when you are not geared... but its power doesn't/shouldn't scale as fast as your main spec does as you gain better gear. As a Guardian, it gave us something to do besides sit there and pretend you're doing something productive (while it's current reduced power is rather... borderline useless if you have decent Vengeance). I'm leaving the Moonkin/Resto portion out of my discussion for the most part since I don't delve into those with great detail, but the reasoning should be the same regardless of spec: HotW seemed overpowered because at lower gear levels, it can likely surpass your main spec. Think of it like how Blizz has addressed tanking DPS in raids, stating that it seems really high since most DPS are not geared and will scale greatly with gear, eventually making tank DPS must less significant. This principle can be applied to HotW, as well.

I think many people are just looking in the short term concerning HotW, and that's the problem when trying to accurately gauge how powerful the ability is. The pre-nerf power may seem great right now with our gear level, but perhaps by the next raiding tier it really won't be that spectacular at all. All that's been done with reducing the power of HotW now is make it worse in the future.

[zagoskin]

Nerfed from 500% to 320% spell damage bonus, so this won't be very viable as feral anymore imo, even considering the passive 6% agility.

[kaiadam]

It's pretty viable still.

The passive 6% is just as good as a medium-level played DoC and just as good as the best played NV, and the activation gives you incredible aoe and healing.

[zagoskin]

It's pretty viable still.

The passive 6% is just as good as a medium-level played DoC and just as good as the best played NV, and the activation gives you incredible aoe and healing.

Besides the healing (which makes it a really good talent actually), i think it's worth trying to master the use of DoC, it's actually a bit of a challenge but fun. But well you got a point, if you still don't manage to use DoC pretty well you can go HotW, since you get some bonus and the rotation becomes easier.

IMO NV is just a burst cd, not really the best in long fights but can pull a lot better in heroics that the other 2.

[kaiadam]

Every player has a finite amount of attention they can spend. If it takes you that much more effort to play the DoC rotation flawlessly, chances are you're missing out on a ton of opportunities to increase damage based on the fight.

For example, I can guarantee you, as #1 ranked feral on like 4/6 of the heroic fights, that I do more damage with HoTW than DoC while dancing on heroic Will.

[zagoskin]

Yeah I've seen your videos and you pull a lot of damage. It is a cool talent, i'm just really in love with DoC lol

Maybe the fact that i play with 200ms makes me choose it more, at least most of the times i lose some of the "burst time" when i try HotW, moving is really an issue for me. Even just being feral isn't that easy as finding the back of the boss, or getting rid of the "you are out of range" message appears as a problem haha.