5 minutes is much, much longer than 15 seconds (UE's cd), and long lasting is relative anyway. I draw the line at either 30s, or 1m maybe. Everything that lasts longer can be safely considered a buff instead of a dps ability.
And paladin blessings didn't last longer. It was inexperience on blizzard's part to have them on 5m on release, and it's inexperience now that they aren't yet simply passive, to reduce ability bloat.
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It is to a degree. UE:WF gives a haste buff, and nothing benefits from haste more than our passive auto hit and imbue procs, so a buff to that haste proc means a buff to passive damage as well. UF:WF is also an unknown atm. The new version could be a passive boost as well (previous allowed auto hits to proc static shock), maybe even stronger than the last, who knows.
True, but it wasn't on 5 charges all the time, even during FET. It is still a buff to passive damage.The uptime of searing flames was a lot higher as well, due to use of fire elemental 1 min / 3.5 mins uptime where it stacked to 5 a lot sooner
On this part I'll take your word for it, as I haven't played for a while. But isn't LL highest prio after UE/FS and SS? Cant imagine it being held for long ever.- on top of this LL's relatively low priority meant it often was being held.
FT will deal more damage than before, hence a buff. SF provided 40% increased FT damage while we had 5 charges, which was not the case all the time. FT now gets 40% increased damage baseline, hence it's a buff. Since the buff was aimed to compensate for the loss of SF, it is a overcompensation, since FT will deal more damage as it did before, simple as that.TL;DR Flametongue is not an overcompensation
The only passive source(singular) that was removed was Static Shock though (did I miss something?).So still, all in all our active damage is being increased to compensate the removal of passive damage sources.
Pet damage counts as well though, they appear on your recount and are part of your dps chart pie. Storm Elemental Totem, Searing Totem, Feral Spirits, they all are passive damage and get recognicable buffs. Blizz may look at the passive/active distribution and decide on buffs/nerfs on either end to reach their goals. They may, for example, reach the conclusion that wf would be ok with 90% weapon damage, or that msw spells (esp EB) hit for to much with the new perk. Or that SS/LL provide to much burst with EotE and improved Lava Lash... to much uncertainty to reach conclusions now after the first look.It's hard to say "wait till beta" when the only thing that will cause higher % passive change is the numbers changing from current. Ofcourse they will but, right now active is the way its going outside of our pet damage.
Obviously my POV isn't able to see as much dmg-source-wise, as I'm inactive, but even then, things are , as they love to say, subject to change.