At this point in 5.2 development, we are greatly slowing down on class mechanic changes. There will still be some, particularly in response to feedback and PTR testing, but ideas for new talents, core spells and the like are even less likely to get our attention now.
We still have not completed our tuning pass. You’ll know we're in the midst of it when you start to see a lot of PTR notes with number tweaks. Having said that, if you have specific concerns about PTR (not live) numbers, and you have some kind of mathematical evidence to back those concerns up, please let us know.
As always, this is not a good thread for whining. No thread is really ideal for whining, but we'll be particularly vigilant here. Sorry to end on a negative note, but it will likely be another long thread and we want to maximize the prospects for communication.
Paladin
To stave off the controversial Protection haste issue, we are making a chance to Grand Crusader to proc from dodge and parry at 30% instead of CS and HotR at 20%. This will improve dodge and parry slightly for active mitigation purposes without negating the +haste slant that many paladins have taken.
Mage
This is very much a PTR experiment, but we are going to try moving Blazing Speed to the top talent tier to replace Scorch. Scorch will become a baseline Fire spell. Blazing Speed’s old position on the talent tree will be replaced with a new talent.
The new talent is currently called Flameglow, and it is a “permanently on” ability that reduces all damage taken by a flat amount, based on spellpower, up to a maximum of 30% of the hit. The intent is to give mages a passive defensive option, and also one that varies with the frequency of incoming damage. Remember, mages must give up Temporal Shield or Ice Barrier to take the new talent.
We agree with the feedback that Blazing Speed makes more sense grouped with the movement talents than with the defensive talents. In addition, we have buffed Ice Floes already from live, and we have added an additional perk that spells cast within the first half a second of Ice Flows don’t consume a charge. Currently if you’re making use of spell queuing, it’s easy to waste the first charge, so this fix is intended to help with that.
That brings us to Scorch. Sorch feels really valuable to many players (above and beyond Arcane using it rotationally to avoid dropping stacks), but we’re concerned that it feels more valuable than it actually is. Yes, Elemental and Hunters can do a lot of damage while on the move, but not every spec in the game needs to do so, and mages have a lot of other advantages. Mages do have several tools to deal with movement, such as several instants and abilities such as Blink and the tier 2 talents to minimize movement time. We’d rather seem mages plan, move quickly, and plant rather than just stay moving all the time. Scorch preempts all of those tools and has the added psychological benefit of feeling like you’re always doing something, and because of that feeling of being productive, we’re concerned you have less motivation to minimize movement. Mathematically, if you’re making full use of your available tools without Scorch, Scorch isn’t much of a benefit of all, and we think the mage class would feel and play better overall without Scorch as a crutch. We debated removing Scorch completely, and we still might, but we’re sensitive to the fact that so many mages are using Scorch today and might not understand or appreciate its loss. As a compromise, we’re going to try Scorch as Fire only to preserve the gameplay for players who really like it and to help differentiate the Mage specs a bit more.
This is a big change, and the kind of thing we might revert if we and you don’t like how it plays. Try it out and let us know.
EDIT: The correct Grand Crusader number is 30% in case you're trying to theorycraft it.
Unless you can demonstrate that "scaling" is going to cause a 5-10% DPS difference between one spec and another within a single tier (say 13 ilevels or so), we're not inclined to mess with it. I'm not trying to dismiss the concerns, but it's become such a buzzword among players that I worry scaling discussions are drowning out other conversations.
Priest
- We are reverting the change to how Devouring Plague deals damage. It will have more up-front damage in 5.2 as it does in 5.1. We think the more recent nerfs to Shadow healing and Phantasm are more appropriate changes for PvP.
You mean that you're leaving haste AS IS for prot, but removing GrandCrusader from proc'ing off of CS/HotR and changing that to dodge/parry? Or do you mean that you're removing Sanctity of Battle for prot, and giving us the above change as the "fix"? Your wording was a little ambiguous, and it makes a HUGE difference about the angry prot pally mob forming or not.
No change to haste, dodge, parry or Sanctity of Battle. Grand Crusader changes to proc on dodge / parry to increase their value for active mitigation.
To address other concerns I've seen: yes, this is a small nerf to DPS when not the focused tank (and is similar to blocks for warriors). Yes, this improved Holy Power generation when AE tanking (but again is similar to Revenge for warriors, which hasn't been a gigantic balance problem). No, you shouldn't have to give up all your haste gear. This change should just let any dodge or parry you do accumulate be more attractive.
The tooltip for PW:S on the PTR was recently updated to show it shielding for 40% more than on live. However, the actual numbers for PW:S on the PTR do not reflect the 40% buff. Can you confirm if this is just a tooltip error or if there is an intended buff to PW:S in the pipeline?
We did not make a change to PW:S points nor is there anything in the patch notes or in one of my posts as far as I can recollect.
I will add that so far on our PTR raid testing, Disc priests are using PW:S along with PoH and not having abnormal HPS or mana problems. Heroic testing will tell more.
Level 90 Hunter Talent - Powershot. Yes you have stated that you are trying to rebuild it, and I am positive that it will be great if you can get it to work properly, but there is no indication that it will be fixed by 5.2
Until a time comes when I say "Sorry, we were not able to get it to work," then you can safely assume our plans have not changed.
Not 30% DR. I made the same mistake by reading it too fast. Read it again, and pay attention this time. It's a flat damage reduction (aka a number such as 3000, 2746, etc.) based on spell power, capped on a maximum 30% reduction. So if a hit would deal X damage, it deals X minus that number, but it cannot reduce the overall damage by more than 30%.
This is correct. Apologies if my initial description was insufficient. The rate of incoming damage is important here.
Thank you for additional feedback from everyone on various topics, though I am of course unable to comment on it all. Also recall my initial post in this thread: we're only interested in 5.2 (not 5.1) DPS comparisons for purposes of this thread, and also, no whining.
Until a time comes when I say "Sorry, we were not able to get it to work," then you can safely assume our plans have not changed.
In fact, I posted this too soon. We have now completed rebuilding Power Shot and Glaive Toss. Both abilities always hit their primary target and are much more responsive to secondary targets in our initial testing. Once these abilities have been subjected to a QA pass, you can try them in a future PTR build and let us know how they work. (
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)