Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17314, Blue Tweets, Fan Art

[chaud]

Teaser From One of D3's Biggest Chinese Fan Sites, Console Version TV Spot, Comics Contest, Curse Weekly Roundup

Beta Day One Recap, Game Systems Previews, Blue Posts

Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17314
Build 17314 will be deployed to the PTR realms soon.

Achievement Changes

Feats of Strength

• Tyrannical Gladiator (New) Achieved Tyrannical Gladiator title.

Spell Changes

Item Set Bonuses

• Item - Druid T16 Guardian 2P Bonus - When Barkskin fades, Savage Defense is automatically activated, and a 20 (was 40) Rage Frenzied Regeneration is automatically cast.

Death Knight (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Necrotic Strike now does 100% weapon damage, down from 150%.

Frost

• Frost Strike now does 115% weapon damage, up from 105%.
• Howling Blast damage increased by 30%.
• Might of the Frozen Wastes causes all melee attacks to deal an additional 30% damage, up from 20%.
• Obliterate now does 250% weapon damage, up from 230%.

Unholy

• Unholy Might now increases your Strength by 25%, up from 10%.

Druid (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Starfall damage increased by 10%.
• Wrath damage increased by 10%.

Balance

• Starfall damage increased by 10%.
• Starfire damage increased by 10%.

Mage (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Frostbolt healing to Water Elemental reduced by 9%.
• Ice Lance damage reduced by 9%.

Frost

• Frostbolt damage reduced by 9%.
• Mastery: Icicles now stores 16% (was 14%) of the damage done by Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt. Now increases the damage of your Water Elemental's Waterbolt by 16%, up from 14%.

Monk (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Talents

• Rushing Jade Wind now has a 6 sec cooldown, up from 2 sec.

Paladin (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Holy

• Holy Shock now costs 8% of base mana, down from 16%.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Mass Exorcism had a 0 value fixed.

Priest (Forums, Talent Calculator)

• Shadow Word: Death damage increased by 15%. Cooldown increased by 20% (7 sec to 9.5 sec).
• Shadow Word: Pain damage, SP scaling, and additional damage increased by 25%.

Shadow

• Vampiric Touch damage and SP scaling increased by 17%.

Rogue (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Assassination

• Assassin's Resolve increases your damage by 30% while wielding daggers, up from 25%.

Combat

• Vitality now increases your Attack Power by 40%, up from 35%.

Major Glyphs

• Glyph of Redirect now reduces the cooldown of Redirect by 50 seconds, rather than removing it.

Shaman (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Talents

• Conductivity now increases Healing Rain's duration by 4 sec, up from 2 sec.

Warrior (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Arms

• Slam now costs 25 Rage, down from 30. Now does 275% weapon damage, down from 330%. Additional damage reduced by 30%.

Blue Tweets

Classes
what 3 spell abilities do you feel were spread too much? imo:1. MS 2. Pets 3. CC (close with dots).
For me, 1. MS, 2. Interrupts, 3. Cast while moving. (Source)

Do you think that now that classes have similar toolkits, players fixate on small dps/hps deltas more now?
Yes. 200% used to be the "unacceptable" delta. Then it became 30%. Now maybe 10% or less. (Source)

Why are warrior/DK buffs still 5 min duration? Other class buffs are always-on passives or 60 mins. There a reason?
They also provide resources so the intent is supposed to be you use them fairly frequently. (Source)
Isn't this just adding to bloat? A 5-min standard buff, even granting resources, is just another bind. Does it add flavor?
We could turn all buffs into passive like Trueshot Aura. Is that better for the game? (Source)

We know, now we are just scared that this will be nerfed. As last time you buffed swp it did not last too long.
The trick is not to view in progress patch notes as final. You can't lose something you technically never had. (Source)

While I understand different healers are ok to have different reliance on spirit, how far do you think that should go?
The less Spirit users should not be able to just stack throughout stats and then outheal the more Spirit users. (Source)

You have the numbers. I'm sure there's more than MM too. No reason to bring a SP vs a mage/lock in 5.2 progression though.
Mage and lock ended up being too good in 5.2. (Source)

Why? Valid argument is valid by definition. Tell us what to focus on. Millions of players, use us to make your job easier.
Players as a collective are always going to want more changes than the game can handle. (Source)
Would you be excited about 200 pages of patch notes for 5.4? As a player, I would find that really intimidating. (Source)
And typically you can't just focus on your class. You often need to know how other classes changed. (Source)
So even when arguments are good, we're often not going to make a change unless we think it's pretty important. (Source)

Then why did Warlocks get such massive changes, then? Constantly hearing "Hunters are fine" from the devs gets old.
It was an experiment. Warlocks consistently among the least popular classes. Wanted to see if big changes changed that. (Source)
Probably too early to tell still, but we're not sure it had much effect and we probably lost some locks over the changes. (Source)
One the other hand, hunters have consistently been among the most popular, so more risk if we overhauled them. (Source)
Consider we still get a fair amount of feedback that focus, ammo, min range and aspect changes were bad. (Source)

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Ooooo goodie!! ... Wait... Does it include any Feral stuff? You know since we're totally confused about what's going on!
No major new Feral changes in the blog. ATM we also think their damage in 5.4 is also fine. (Source)

Lore said you were planning on giving Spriests and Boomkins active mitigation abilities. Where is this ability?
This was a miscomm somewhere along the line. We meant that mitigation was too high not that we wanted to swap passive for active. (Source)

You had said you were getting rid of passive Dmg reduction in turn for cooldowns will balance get any? Barkskin is weak.
No, we said we were getting rid of passive damage reduction on some of the ranged specs. They felt too tanky to us. (Source)
(And we understand those of you playing those specs disagree.) (Source)

Instead of nerfing the Balance T16 4Set because we were being capped on SS procs, why not consider letting SS procs stack to N
We considered that, but it procs so fast we thought you'd never be able to burn through all the stacks. (Source)

Can you actually give some insight into the Balance change and whether you will compensate? to calm the masses.
On the PTR we were seeing a rotation with almost no Starfire or Wrath usage. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I'm sorry if this was already answered but was readiness removal for hunters needed for pve or pvp reasons?
In this case, both. (Source)

(my reply was referring to general hunter nerfs i've read about. not the idea about applying dot via arcane shot.)
I just meant we're not thrilled with the idea of hunters bringing the perceived best MS if it's easy to apply from range. (Source)
I don't get it. It's baked into warrior attacks why not bake it into hunter ones? what exactly is the diff?
Range. (Source)
given how many distance closers you've given warriors (and melee in general) it's pretty easy for them to apply ms as well
Good. It was originally their ability. If anyone needs the best MS, it should be warriors. (Source)

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
on subject of mages, an you guys do something new with arcane mastery next xpac? And their kit as well?
Unlikely. (Source)

on the subject of mages, an you guys come up with something better mastery wise for the next xpac? Thought passive dmg was bad
What is a spec that you think has a good mastery? I ask bc some players want passive dps, while others want procy mechanics. (Source)

is the reasoning for fire nerfs to force us to play another spec because you "worked so hard on frost mastery".
No. Fire's damage was just unacceptably high in our 5.4 testing. (Source)
Combustion was a good thing to hit since it causes such huge swings based on perfect timing and a little luck. (Source)
I don't play Fire, so I have no axe to grind. You are aware that currently combustion is doing 100% of ignite dmg though ?
Yeah, just a bug. It isn't worth delaying every PTR build until we catch every bug, or we'd release far fewer. (Source)

I mean I get how insanely hard fire is to balance without killing lower ilvls. Maybe time for a redesign?
As I mentioned in the blog, we have concerns about Critical Mass and AT + Combustion that we'd like to solve eventually. (Source)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Not a mention of revival, why do you think it's so strong that it deserves to hit for what a TFT uplift does?
It is instant. (Source)

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
The reason paladins are so high is borked scaling. Too weak at low or no vengeance but OP at high veng. Examine.
We don't really see them weak at low V and only a problem in "I'll tank it all mode" which should be fixed now. (Source)

It feels like the EF mastery nerf was intended to redirect us to SH or SS but it's ending up as a mastery nerf instead
We'd be open to buffing mastery. We don't like the gameplay of using a hot to constantly refresh it though. (Source)

It has felt like we've been given tools then had them arbitrarily taken away because of a vision we don't have access to
You have EF. We just thought the interaction between EF and mastery was a bit degenerate. (Source)
Which is why I have a hard time with the "now paladins don't have an identity because we can't roll bubbles with hots." (Source)
My hope is that anyone who has stuck with us for very long would understand why that violated our design intent on many levels. (Source)

Again we hear that EF doesn't fit the style you want for holy without saying what style you want. Help?
EF is fine to use. If every paladin uses it, it is no longer fine. (Source)

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Dear Shadow, we buffed you because you weren't at our 5.4 targets. We did not buff you because you campaigned for buffs. #nothowthisworks (Source)
don't act like we didn't need it
That's the whole point. Shadow in 5.4 did need it. It wasn't because anyone asked for it. #stillnothowthisworks (Source)
Is this what happens when Devs don't want to admit they were wrong and the players were right?
I don't feel that claim holds water. We admit when we're wrong all the time. (Source)

Players argued that spriest needed buffs. Devs crunch numbers and buff spriests. Players were right.
I think I've seen players of every spec arguing for buffs this AM. Surely they can't all be right, can they? (Source)
If so, how do you know which players to listen to? You use your judgment, which is what we do. (Source)

I have no reason to doubt you. Still, 10-man is the majority of groups, and atm shadow doesn't fit well.
In 10s, I am pretty sure there are more Shadow priests raiding than Fury and Ret combined. They are fitting in somewhere. (Source)
In 10s lots of Rets went Prot b/c Prot is OP w/ same gear. Look at diff in Ret representation between 10s and 25s.
Not sure that's true. We agree Prot is too good on live, but some Rets just want to be Rets. (Source)

Thought to replace PoH for Priest: make it a low power Halo and replace Halo with Holy/Shadow Nova. Comment?
We would like not to turn PoH into yet another smart heal. A pox on smart heals! (Source)

In my dreams I see SW:P buffs and castable-while-moving Mindflays. I'm so happy here in my dreams, but is it time to wake up?
SW:P is a good place to buff if we conclude they need it. Mind Flay on the move would be too good. You'd be very mobile. (Source)
We could do a Spiritwalkers treatment, but really everyone with Spiritwalkers is just more class homogenization. (Source)
We'd rather Shadow just be strong in other places if they're weaker on the move. (Source)
Agree moving Flay is too good. Maybe turn Spike into a shadowy Scorch/Fel Flame?
Possibly, but does every caster need a Scorch analogue like every melee has a Kick clone? (Source)
Overall, we're worried we have been too kind with the "but I need X ability" to the point of class over-similarity. (Source)
I guess as long as you refrain from strengthening class niches people are going to ask for equal tools
But if class niches are too strong, that's not cool either. Leads to class stacking etc. (Source)
Is that really done by anyone other than high-performance players and some copycats?
The impression from the forums / twitter is that many even fairly casual guilds are worried about being benched. (Source)

FDCL is a lackluster talent capable of fixing our movement issues, if you'll let it. Community would embrace it.
How do you make FDCL useful for movement without just beating Insanity all the time? (Source)
Sp community quiet because a lot of them were asked to go disc.Shadow utility and dps in bad place
Skeptical. Shadow is one of the most popular DPS specs for raiding. (Source)
Rep doesn't tell you everything but it can help tell if someone is being benched. (Source)
So we have to be underrepresented before you consider bringing Shadow on par (Single Tar.) with other casters?
I was just arguing against the questionable claim that we get little Shadow feedback because they were all asked to respec. (Source)
I guess because most Theorycrafters addressed you once and then said "He has the data, his move." instead of mass QQing.
Shadow vs. e.g. hunters or Elemental in 5.2. looks pretty good. (Source)
And we believe the data suggests Shadow is competitive except against locks and mages, whose DPS is too high. (Source)
You keep saying lock and mage dps is too high yet you do nothing to adjust that. You might aswell buff Shadow.
If we hotfix buffs to everyone else, then you can suddenly beat all the content quickly and there is no progression. (Source)
If we hotfix nerfs to outlier specs, it risks a group being unable to beat a boss they previously had on farm. (Source)
Obviously those are two extremes and we do make adjustments despite the risks, but we want to be careful. (Source)

Neither do I. I've never said broken, just +10% undertuned vs our direct raid spot competition.
Priests looking for more competitive damage in 5.4 should be happy. The ones with long lists of mechanic redesigns will not. (Source)

So its main reason why Shadow just ignored? I like shadow but you force me to reroll
If you think Shadow is horribly flawed, you're likely looking for something different out of the spec than we are. (Source)
When you completely gut a spec in PvP and give no compensation, Expect a plethora of tweets and complaints.
Shadow is performing really well in PvP. We don't see the 5.4 nerfs as gutting. (Source)

Lore said you were planning on giving Spriests and Boomkins active mitigation abilities. Where is this ability?
This was a miscomm somewhere along the line. We meant that mitigation was too high not that we wanted to swap passive for active. (Source)

Why play shadow when everything else has an advantage over it. Those who played it for years tell you and u brush them off.
It's one of those cry wolf deals where we hear so regularly how all 34 specs are doomed that it just becomes background noise. (Source)
FWIW, the most common mistakes we see are downplaying your own spec's advantages or comparing yourself to an overpowered spec. (Source)

Oh, is this like WotLK where you infamously said "Shadow is fine." yet had to give them a huge buff next patch?
We haven't finished our 5.4 tuning. I'm not sure what you're arguing about. (Source)

what was wrong with the SW: D change? i played with it on the ptr and it made execute so smoother i almost cried of happiness
There was more backlash than we expected. If changes are controversial and not critical then we have to be careful. (Source)

No other caster class has the ramp up time of shadow; orb generation precombat will not hurt any more than it has for balance?
We'd kill it for Balance if it was easy. If the intent was to start fully loaded, we'd have them generate out of combat. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Binding recuperate to a single spec would be very bad news for rogues
Remember, that was a totally off the cuff example of how rogues could change. It's nowhere near an announcement, (Source)
Not sure it would be Sub only, but we heard lots of feed that it was cool when Sub used it a lot. (Source)
Misunderstood your post. It was interesting to utilize another finisher. Being forced 2 keep Slice/Recup up sucked
Yeah, for sure. One pitch is to parcel out Rupture, SnD and Recup, but maybe that is still too similar of a maintain X feel. (Source)
How about,all specs keeps slice and rupture, but focus on adding exciting moves with short cooldowns,or limited use?
So many rogues complain about SnD maintenance that giving them an opt out would be nice. (Source)

One question: Why 10 seconds on Evasion now?
We thought the <100% was too RNG (you can almost count on it but not quite). But the duration at 100% felt too long with Prep. (Source)

And you are happy with rogue population too, cause thay are falling down??? Changes need to hapen cause thay are outdated...
They have been dropping almost since launch. We've looked at the issue a lot, and two things seemed to hasten the decline. (Source)
First, it became harder to gank someone from stealth in the world. Second, we introduced DKs. (Source)
In any case, we're not sold on the idea that overhauling rogues leads to a population increase. Not sure that worked for locks. (Source)

Looking at the 1st round of DPS tuning: Are you guys intending assassination to shine again in execute range? If so, thanks!
Partially, but really just Assassination was lower than intended on 5.4. I'm not sure I can explain why that is relative to 5.3. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Hey, was healing on my shaman again on PTR. Could you please rethink stacking Earth Shields?! Huge QoL issue, seems outdated.
The effectiveness of healing (the first part) applies to any Earth Shield, not just yours. (Source)

I don't get why shamans were the only class to get all nerfs and no buffs this update...I feel a tad sick right now.
You'll be fine. If that's your reaction to patch notes, you might be obsessing about patch notes a smidge too much. (Source)

Then revert the healing rain change. Pretty sure that falls under the "but mah niche" buff section
The problem for Shaman was that they had big weaknesses in ranged or movement fights. (Source)
We'd rather offset a weakness (assuming it isn't debilitating) rather than remove that weakness. (Source)

Concerning Stormblast and Elemental Blast, why not give them the Colossus Smash treatment instead of affecting sustained PVE?
We were concerned about Elemental DPS being too high in PvE as well. The numbers aren't final though. (Source)
Im pretty sure he meant enhance. But it still seems odd when he did that coffee break thing saying enhance was fine
Sorry for the confusion, but it applies to both shaman DPS specs. (Source)
Explain going from "we think shamans are fine in pve" and then nerfing them almost immediately nerf them to that extent?
More raid testing happened. I was careful to caveat in the blog that 5.4 hadn't yet shipped and nothing was set in stone. (Source)

Hey GC please reassure me the Enhancement tweaks are bad data mining by MMOC ?
No, their damage was too high in both PvP and PvE. We nerfed SS largely because there have 30 different damage sources. (Source)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
I think the Warlock KJC flip-flop inspired this round. You guys were so set and then reverted it after outcry.
Not really. We listened to arguments and made some changes. 5.4 KJC is not 5.3 version. (Source)

any chance breath does dmg? get rid of void ray? back it in as a dot into old style sflame? goes with the tier talents kinda.
If it does damage, then locks will feel like they are supposed to squeeze it into their rotation somehow. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
remove heroic strike coz now specially after hamstring buff its useless , remove Op stack , stacking op is really boring.
HS may not have a role for Arms anymore. Fury and Prot use it. (Source)
Why the push to remove HS all the sudden? Unless you make Slam take its place, HS IS essential to rage managemt
Only for brief periods IMO. Usually it was at X gear level, you now have rage to spam HS as well as your normal rotation. (Source)
We think more rage management is more fun, but we have to balance that with players who want to fill every GCD. (Source)
If you are GCD limited it's hard to also be resource limited. (Source)
But without HS, at those X gear levels, you'd have no way to bleed that rage. Would feel bad to sit at 100 rage all the time.
Not disagreeing. I'm saying rage management needs to be a core piece of gameplay not something you gear out of. (Source)
Before the MoP rage changes, warriors were rage starved until X, then overpowered and felt understandably they had earned it. (Source)
But then it sucked to be a warrior before X, and sucked to be everyone else after. Not a stellar design. (Source)
Due to the HR glyph, using Shield Block is defensively AND offensively best. HS is in a pretty dire spot.
We'd agree but there are several examples of this when we considered tank dps more optional so made glyphs for it. (Source)
The logic is that survival glyphs are mandatory, but these days tank dps is Kind of a Big Deal, so they aren't optional either. (Source)

coz its not Op , or buff Ms damage , slam is not the way to make warrior good , it will hurt pvp and pve for most , you like .
It's tough with Arms (PvE and PvP) to keep either OP or Slam from being ignored. With more OP dmg you might not Slam at all. (Source)
But if Slam does too much damage, you just save all rage for it. (Source)

Is it possible to just see Sunder Armor become a part of CS for 5.4? I don't think I have pushed this button all xpac.
Not for 5.4 but maybe eventually we'll just merge it with Devastate and CS. (Source)

I like the concept of Meat Cleaver. It's just that Cleave has no part in our AOE rotation. Too much rage cost, too little dmg.
We could cut Cleave and just let you WW and RB. (Source)

Most warriors I know don't have it on their hotbar even. Second point: Fury aoe feels clunky at best. Anything to smooth it up
Hmm. We really like Fury AE. Meat Cleaver is fun. (Source)

So, how serious were you about removing Cleave? I'd think only prot warriors would complain as they actually use it.
It's an iconic spell and one warriors have had forever, but if it is superfluous, it's hard to justify. (Source)

making Thunder Clap have no CD for Prot would solve everything, allow us to get agro on pack of mobs all the time
So would a no CD Challenging Shout, but we don't want to take all the skill out of tanking. (Source)
you mean mocking banner.cause banner doesnt fixate big adds and bosses. again.fixate not taunt.
No, I actually meant CS. The idea is to give tanks tools and let them use them, not to make it trivial to do anything. (Source)
Back when threat control was trickier, there was a place for CS. These days threat is easy. (Source)
If you can't pick up every add instantly, that's okay. You'll still beat the encounter. (Source)

Can I ask why, when Arms Warriors need sustained damage buffs, you buff slam and not MS/OP?
Common feed we hear is all the attacks feel about the same. We think Slam can hit harder w/out the rotation just being Slam spam. (Source)
DW buff = sustained damage. BTW I've always thought OP should be free, Slam as rage dump with HS emergency rage dump
OP didn't work well as free because it let warriors ignore all rage generation but MS. (Source)

Are you after a rotation where Slam is better than Overpower under Colossus Smash? Bank rage for SD so HS dies?
I wouldn't use HS much as Arms unless you need a hit ASAP for some reason or have tons of rage from e.g. Zerk stance. (Source)

how do you intend Slam to function in the Arms rotation in 5.4?
It does more damage during CS, so in PvE use it then. In PvP you can use it anytime you need a big hit and have the rage. (Source)

Fan Art
Blizzard has updated the Trading Card Game art gallery to feature ten new pieces.

[Boricha]

Lots of buffs

[Deleted]

im glad frost dk's are finally getting noticed bout bloody time

[Hekili]

Please don't cripple my enhancement shaman... I guess my shadow priest will be playable, at least.

[dreamtears]

give tons of shit to shammys and conductivity buff T.T
thx GC

[Warrada]

And not a single change to Hunters... I have always wondered why they're the last class to be touched during PTRs. Always the last to be fixed (with band-aids)...

[Tehterokkar]

No Hunter buffs... Yay... Hunters are performing worse on PTR than on Live.

[Deleted]

where are hunter buffs?
Where is compensation for readiness?

Deterrence gives 1 charge every 3min, NOT 2 like it should.
Still no buff to our 30% heal. after battle fatigue it heals less than 15% - its NOT viable choice compared to 10% dr at all times.

we are in terrible shape on live, even worse PTR.
With our scaling we don't stand a chance against other pures. + we have ZERO utility for raids.

I m so sad. 10 days until launch, nothing..

[Kyuuseishu]

where are hunter buffs?
Where is compensation for readiness?

Deterrence gives 1 charge every 3min, NOT 2 like it should.
Still no buff to our 30% heal. after battle fatigue it heals less than 15% - its NOT viable choice compared to 10% dr at all times.

we are in terrible shape on live, even worse PTR.
With our scaling we don't stand a chance against other pures. + we have ZERO utility for raids.

I m so sad. 10 days until launch, nothing..

Shows how much you all pay attention to the official patch notes about 2 news posts down on the front page, never trust datamined notes.

[Koji2k11]

redirect nerf yay the only (Class) whose recourse system is tied to an enemy and we need a f*cking spell to redirect it now on live its a pain with this glyph while its still nice a no CD would be great i doubt many rogues will pick it

[Resentful]

redirect nerf yay the only (Class) whose recourse system is tied to an enemy and we need a f*cking spell to redirect it now on live its a pain with this glyph while its still nice a no CD would be great i doubt many rogues will pick it

What is wrong with you? We got buffed fucking hardcore fuck redirect lol

[Deleted]

Shows how much you all pay attention to the official patch notes about 2 news posts down on the front page, never trust datamined notes.

It does not matter? Time grows short, and hunters still have 0 buffs. official or datamined. nothing.
Almost every bossfight have adds and/or burst phases SoO - we are weak on both.

Sorry, but 10 days is not much - i feel worried about my raidspot.

[Kyuuseishu]

It does not matter? Time grows short, and hunters still have 0 buffs. official or datamined. nothing.
Almost every bossfight have adds and/or burst phases SoO - we are weak on both.

Sorry, but 10 days is not much - i feel worried about my raidspot.

So the damage buffs to the signature moves aswell as a buff to arcane shot damage (with a cost nerf) in the official notes are nothing then? Since I count atleast 3, one to each spec, seriously read before posting.

On another note, the number passes arent even finished yet so being worried about raid spots is incredibly premature.

[kidsafe]

So the damage buffs to the signature moves aswell as a buff to arcane shot damage (with a cost nerf) in the official notes are nothing then? Since I count atleast 3, one to each spec, seriously read before posting.

On another note, the number passes arent even finished yet so being worried about raid spots is incredibly premature.

Those buffs are not enough. Arcane Shot was previously buffed to 150% weapon damage at a cost of 50% more focus, so it just got a major nerf. It does a lot to cause focus starvation as well as getting stuck in a Cobra/Steady Shot when more potent abilities come off cooldown.

Beast Mastery and MM need a lot of help. SV needs a slight bit of help. Both T16 set bonuses are pretty awful and should have been reworked. Deterrence needs to be affected by CTHD.

[Deleted]

So the damage buffs to the signature moves aswell as a buff to arcane shot damage (with a cost nerf) in the official notes are nothing then? Since I count atleast 3, one to each spec, seriously read before posting.

Try actual math.
Kill command buff is less than 2% overall damage buff,
Arcane shot is NERF - damage increase from 110% -> 125%(13% buff), BUT 50% focus increase is HUGE? HUGE, HUGE!!!
Here goes you <2%.. more actually!

They moved damage from arcane to signatures, that is all! NOTHING more. Slight nerf overall!

Please, try hunters on PTR before post more nonsense.
Seriously use brain before posting!
---

+ Arcane shot focus increase will break hunters in a LOT of situations as well, mostly on quick target switch.
---

On top of that, they buff rogues, HUGE buff.
They are already top dps spec + they got strong utility for pure dps.

Got answer to this too smartass ?
---

[Murderdoll]

give tons of shit to shammys and conductivity buff T.T
thx GC

You are kidding right? Both DPS specs got nerfed into oblivion. Absolute oblivion. As if a conductivity buff (when most people will STILL use AG anyway) and some minor glyphs can make up for that.

[Daltin]

On top of that, they buff rogues, HUGE buff.
They are already top dps spec + they got strong utility for pure dps.

Got answer to this too smartass ?
---

They buffed a dead spec to try and convince people that it's worth playing. Assassination might be near the top, but combat is nowhere near "top dps spec", which is what the Vitality buff covers (which is what you're flipping out about). I can tell you right now, that even with that buff, I'm still not touching combat with a 10 foot pole. The spec feels bad, it IS bad, and they need to address all of the other problems that combat suffers from.

All this buff says is, "We don't know how to fix it, so, here's a flat damage buff".

[Deleted]

They buffed a dead spec to try and convince people that it's worth playing. Assassination might be near the top, but combat is nowhere near "top dps spec", which is what the Vitality buff covers (which is what you're flipping out about).

Lol! Really, wtf people? are you blind or just skip whatever pleases you?
Miss assassination buff?
Assassin's Resolve buff? 5% on top on 125 = 4% buff overall.

Why not buff other classes who really need those 4 % ? instead blizzard just buff "top dps spec".
Why????????
---

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/10158897/#rogue
Check official patch noted!!!!!
Assiassinations got HUGE buff..
Fan of knifes,
Sinister strike,
Assassin's Resolve,
Mutilate.

Its more than 10% overall, not just 4%!!!!

I don't get this.. Assassinations is BEST melle spec atm. little behind mages and locks.

[Daltin]

Lol! Really, wtf people? are you blind or just skip whatever pleases you?
Miss assassination buff?
Assassin's Resolve buff? 5% on top on 125 = 4% buff overall.

Why not buff other classes who really need those 4 % ? instead blizzard just buff "top dps spec".
Why????????
---

No, I didn't miss it. The 5% damage buff to Assassination is an attempt to make up for how truly horrible melee is going to be in Siege of Orgrimmar. Hop on PTR, or even watch some streams, and tell me how many people are in the top 10 of a given fight.

They don't want to Dragonsoul us where melee just get a flat AP buff, so they're giving out incremental buffs. The strongest spec had it's passive damage ability go from +25% to +30%. Hooray. I'd express more excitement, but that's all I can muster.

Rogues are, and have traditionally been, the "top pure DPS spec" because of their lack of raid utility. You bring a rogue for their damage, period. With the Smoke Bomb utility added, that isn't true anymore. We're allowed to be middle of the pack. We are currently, and we will be in the future. There are fights where we will be top, there will be fights where we're mid, and there will be the insanely melee-unfriendly fights where we will be at the "top of the bottom", which will consist of all the melee at the bottom of the meters.

I'm sorry your class, whatever it is, didn't get a buff (yet). To cry doomsday and apocalypse scenarios because a -DEAD- spec got a big buff (that still isn't enough to make me or any rogues I know want to actually play it), is a little asinine. Familiarize yourself with the class before you start going on incoherent banters about what you perceive as an overpowered buff.

[Mawnix]

Thank you so much for the DK buff.