Class Balance, Blasted Lands Quest Reward, Oct 15 Hotfixes, Group Finder, Stat Squish

[chaud]

Play Your Way Stream, 2014 Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest, Tempest Rush Monk

Top 5 Plays of the Week, Ben Brode on Currency, SeatStoryCup this Weekend

Skin Spotlight: AzGul'dan, Developer Insights: Azmodan

Patch 6.0.2 Class Balance

Hunters, we're not ignoring you, or satisfied with the current situation. New data helps us find the issue. We just need to work through the discrepancies, and find out what is disguising the issue on our side. Maybe we assume this is obvious, but it'll help to hear: The goal is equality. We'll continue working toward that goal. Obviously, we are not there yet. Nor do we expect to get there at 90 (but will get closer). We *do* expect to get there at 100.

I hope you do the same for all classes.
We are. Hunters are just at the top of our list right now.

Blasted Lands Quest Rewards
If you were eager to do the Blasted Lands event quests, you may have completed them before rewards were hotfixed in. The quests are now correctly rewarding item level 520 trinkets. If you actually need the trinket and did the quest early on, you may have to wait for a fix:

Level	Type	Spec	Slot	Name
520	Trinket		Trinket	Bloodburn Protector
520	Trinket	Melee	Trinket	Bladespike Charm
520	Trinket	Spell Spirit	Trinket	Ironmender's Totem
520	Trinket	Physical DPS	Trinket	Talisman of the Invader
520	Trinket	Spell DPS	Trinket	Bloodcaster's Charm

I don't have a specific update, but the potential resolution will be one available to all those affected and not something that we'd "fix" on an individual level.

Developmental implementation can take a little time though so it will likely be a few days before they can create, test and implement their resolution. I'll provide any updates I am able to pass along.

Patch 6.0.2 Hotfixes - October 15

World Event: Iron Horde Incursion

• Players are now able to accept the Iron Horde Invasion quest even if their Quest Logs are full.
• Slightly thinned out Okril'lon patrols around Nethergarde Keep.
• Resolved an issue where some Iron Horde Incursion quests were awarding items that had a level 100 requirement to equip or not awarding an item correctly.

Premade Groups

• Forming Premade Groups for questing should no longer result in the interface selecting a Warlords of Draenor zone by default.
• Resolved a number of interface issues when attempting to form a Premade Group for Random Pandaria Dungeons.

Toy Box

• Characters should no longer automatically learn toys awarded from quests that are bind-on-equip (Sylvanas' Music Box, Muradin's Favor).

Classes

• Death Knight
  
  • General
    
    • Blood Boil should no longer incorrectly grant Scent of Blood or Runic Power if it doesn't strike a target. Additionally, Blood Boil should no longer incorrectly cause diseases to spread back to the casting Death Knight.
  • Talents
    
    • Death Siphon should no longer heal for more than intended when used against targets that are much lower leveled than the casting Death Knight.
• Mage
  
  • Frost
    
    • Fingers of Frost rate of activation for Frostbolt and Frostfire Bolt should now correctly factor in the bonus from using the glyphed version of Icy Veins.
• Monk
  
  • Mistweaver
    
    • Revival healing is no longer split amongst multiple party or raid members.

World Environment

• Players are now automatically unflagged for PvP when they enter a PvE realm by joining a cross-realm group.
• Creatures
  
  • [Requires a realm restart.] To better account for the changes to player health and ability scaling, we've reduced the health and damage of nearly all non-player creatures and NPCs on a level-by-level basis (larger reductions for lower-level creatures, in general).
  • The damage dealt by several of Ordos's abilities has been reduced.

Quests

• Legendary Cloak Quest Line
  
  • [Requires a realm restart.] Heart of the Thunder King: Resolved an issue where players were not receiving Lei Shen's heart if they've already defeated them earlier in the week.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios
Raids

• Siege of Orgrimmar
  
  • The Norushen encounter should now correctly have a 10 minute enrage timer on Raid Finder difficulty.
  • Sha of Pride should no longer use the Wounded Pride ability on Raid Finder difficulty.
  • Thok the Bloodthirsty should now properly drop Mythic tier armor tokens while on Mythic difficulty.
  • Damage of Stone Statue's Animated Strike ability has been squished.
  • Garrosh Hellscream now has 15% less health on Mythic difficulty.
  • Resolved an issue where an excessive number of items could drop at once from non-boss enemies in Siege of Orgrimmar when Personal Loot was enabled.
• Throne of Thunder
  
  • Damage of Thunder Lord's Conductive Shield ability has been squished.
  • Damage of Lei Shen's Crashing Thunder ability has been squished.
• Terrace of Endless Spring
  
  • Damage of Protectors of the Endless' Lightning Prison ability has been squished.
  • Damage of Apparition of Fear's Unleashed Terror ability has been squished.
• Blackwing Lair
  
  • Self-healing for Ebonroc's Shadow of Ebonroc ability has been squished.

Scenarios

• The Secrets of Ragefire: Damage for enemy spells and abilities in the Scenario have been squished.

Proving Grounds

• Resolved an issue where characters that have completed the achievement: Proving Yourself: Endless Damage (Wave 30) (Level 90) were not retaining their titles.

PvP

• Level 90 players now deal 25% less damage against other Level 90 players.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

• [Requires a realm restart.] Resolved an issue where Battleground queues were not working correctly.

Items

• For Mists of Pandaria items that used to have a Valor Point cost, players should now be able to sell them back within the 2-hour window.
• Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji's Spirit of Chi'ji triggered ability should now correctly redistribute overhealing to nearby injured friends.
• Resolved an issue that could cause items to lose their Transmogrification when zoning into a new area.

Bug Fixes

• Resolved an issue that caused a LUA error when viewing quests that used to offer Justice or Valor Point rewards.
• Resolved an issue where Deck Your Collection achievement was not converting into the correct version after a Faction Change.

Group Finder
Several players have expressed concerns about the new Group Finder, such as the 25 visible groups cap and timers on different things.

When we design our default UI elements we follow some core design philosophies to ensure we have a consistent, approachable, unobtrusive, and easy-to-use interface. And, also like most default UI elements, the Premade Groups tool is fully moddable. We'd fully expect that, much like unit frames, raid frames, etc., that those who are looking for different layouts and additional functionality will turn to creating and using addons. Which is of course largely the point and focus of addon support--allowing people to gain additional customization and functionality beyond what the default UI might offer. Quite a few players prefer that additional functionality and customization, and that's awesome, that's what makes addons great. But it is early still, the patch hasn't been out long, and mods tend to spring from a personal or collective desire for specific functionality or customization. Maybe you can help inspire an addon author?

That said, we're still definitely looking for feedback on what changes or features people want to see made to the default UI in future updates, and any constructive feedback on layout improvements or changes are more than welcome. In this case the UI and Macro forum is probably the best place to help consolidate feedback.

Patch 6.0.2 Stat Squish and Leveling Concerns

We have a hotfix in testing that will adjust creature scaling to better account for the stat squish.

To elaborate a bit, this isn't just about the stat squish. That was actually a relatively straightforward process numerically. But we made three separate changes that all affected the pacing and danger level of legacy content throughout the game:

• The "stat squish" wherein items from level 60 through Mists of Pandaria dungeon gear were changed to use a linear instead of an exponential scale.
• Doubling player health, enabling us to remove resilience from PvP and also make damage and healing less "spiky" in general.
• Removing base points from spells to allow for better scaling and tuning across classes - previously a Frostbolt might have done X damage plus Y% of your spell power; now, in 6.0.2, it just does Z% of your spell power.

Any tuning issues that are being seen, particularly in level-up content (especially dungeons), aren't a result of the squish alone but rather the combination of all three changes. We've been following data and feedback closely, and are testing internally the change that Lore mentioned, which should hopefully be deployed within a day or so (it will require server restarts). In the meantime, if there are particular creature abilities that you encounter that seem disproportionately deadly, it's quite helpful to keep pointing those out.

Blue Posts

Damage in PvP
We've just applied a hotfix that will reduce pvp damage by 25%. Once the expansion launches, it will be reverted, but it should make skirmishes a bit more palatable in the meantime. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Battleground Queues
Correct, we'll unfortunately need to restart realms in order for the fix to apply. Restarts are scheduled for early tomorrow morning in the North American region. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Mythic/Warforged Items Downgrading to Normal
Don't have any information to share at this time but letting you know that we're currently investigating the issue. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blasted Lands Rewards Availability Duration
Yep, the Iron Starlette pet and Iron Vanguard title are only available until Warlords launches on November 13th. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Loot Based Lockouts
The loot-based lockouts should be in place on Normal or Heroic for Siege of Orgrimmar, and should work a lot like Flex partial clears did in 5.4: based on the leader's lockout, with bosses despawned from the start until reaching the first one the leader hasn't killed (so, e.g. if a leader has done Immerseus and Norushen but somehow was not saved to Protectors, their instance would begin with Immerseus dead, but Protectors and Norushen still alive).

More or less, you should be able to pick up where you left off in Normal or Heroic, and if you enter a different instance where a boss you've already killed still lives, you can help out but you won't get loot.

From the above, it sounds like there may be some bugs here. It's a complex system, and a big part of why we converted Siege of Orgrimmar to use the new system in 6.0 was to make entirely certain that we work out any glitches before Draenor raids commence. We'll look into it. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Level 90 Boost Experience
Sorry about any confusion! When Warlords of Draenor releases boosted characters will have their abilities introduced a few at a time as they quest through the intro Draenor experience. Until then we've made the new Iron Tide invasion event an accelerated version of the same process. If you're on a boosted character you'll want to begin the Blasted Lands questline that pops up when you first log in, and your abilities will unlock as you go.

We recently updated the patch notes with that information.

Boosted Characters

Newly Boosted Characters now start on the front lines in the Blasted Lands, doing whatever they can to stop the Iron Horde pouring out of The Dark Portal and start with a basic set of spells and abilities for their class. Characters unlock the rest of their spells and abilities by advancing through the Iron Horde Incursion world event in the Blasted Lands. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets

Racials
after undead racial nerfed. it was promised to nerf human racial... the question was in wich way... we saw nothin till now...
It was not promised. We never promise. We sometimes share our thoughts about what we're considering. No promises were made. (holinka)

Classes
Druid (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
Any plans to change cyclone range back to 30 yards? Would be a huge QOL change.
That is not a QoL change, that is a buff. (holinka)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)
how come monks get no love forMinor glyphs we got the least transmog choices & no cosmetic stuff
As a new class, many of the "hey that sounds cool!" ideas were baked in from the start (Muffinus)

Character / Items
Will horde players keep the azeroth choppers mount should they transfer to alliance after the deadline to obtain the mount?
All horde characters get the mount for any account that logs in during the prescribed period. (holinka)

General statement: we do not have any plans for any more toybox changes until we see how things shake out over the next few months. Anything with a player or NPC interaction, teleport, movement buff, or a quest item was intentionally not included. It is one thing for a character to have earned those items at the intended level, but giving them to every character may not be appropriate. (Source)

PvE
Is the bug that Assendance was not resetting after killing a boss (all other CDs do) fixed for 6.0? If not, will it be for WoD?
Only cooldowns greater than 3 minutes reset at the end of raid encounter attempts, so that isn't a bug. (WatcherDev)

PvP
can you confirm, in WoD RBGS award same amount of Conquest as arena rating?
In Warlords, your cap is based on your highest rating, whether it's arenas or RBGs. RBGs do provide an extra chance at gear tough. (holinka)

can real id friends group queue for Ashran?
yes (holinka)

oh, huh? So on busy servers we can expect queue times? I expect similar but opposite servers like KT and MG to merge?
the focus is having both sides full, not making sure both sides have equal queue times. (holinka)

You mentioned in an interview Mythic gear will get reduced ilvl in PvP Combat. Waht ilvl will it be? What about Legendary effects?
690 and PvE set bonuses don't work (holinka)

Quick Q: is Ashran going work like TB/WG in that only ~equal amounts of players from each faction can be in it? #WoW
No. Ashran queuing is basically a bouncer. We let everyone in until we're at capacity for the server. (holinka)

with Ashran servers being grouped for faction balance, are they still being matched within CRZ groups, or was that idea discarded?
We'll try to match them up in the same data centers as much as possible. (holinka)

Lore
...deal with that through Thrall, but now HE'S fucking back, yet we're losing Khadgar, and I assume the Kirin Tor again
How are you losing him? He's more active than he's ever been in WoW. Everyone benefits from his presence. (_DonAdams)

did the FOTR only react? did King Arthur? villains create drama, but they don't have to be everything.
Gandalf is reacting to Sauron. You know this because there's a lot of time for the details to unfold. Not a luxury games have. (_DonAdams)
We want to put up a big enemy and give you reasons to fight them, we make you want to go on the adventure and take them down. (_DonAdams)
Villains aren't "everything" but you need a strong, clear conflict for players to resolve. Otherwise it's not compelling. (_DonAdams)

Tradition is no excuse. Break tradition, create heroes that are proactive - reactive heroes seem less intelligent.
What would a "proactive" hero do? What conflict would they solve? Who created the conflict? Genuinely curious. (_DonAdams)
proactive heroes strike first against, even seek out, evil and injustice. Batman chillin until signaled vs. out patrolling Gotham
We do that all the time in quests. It's also pretty much the definition of a raid. We do it constantly. (_DonAdams)
I get what you're saying; it's in the details. Evil is out there and we're going to go stop it. (_DonAdams)
At a high level, he's still reacting to crime. Someone is still creating conflict which he has to resolve. (_DonAdams)
As a player I feel proactive constantly. In the past the majority of faction heroes felt static/reactive unlike in the RTS games.
That is fair, but you were also playing as those characters on their journeys. You had enough time with Arthas to care. (_DonAdams)

also, Garrosh's goals have been the Horde's goals for half the lifetime of this game...
Horde is divided, even players are split between Garrosh's goals of conquest and Thrall's goals of peace. (_DonAdams)

When's next time you see Alliance as having a "bad guy"? All Alliance "buy guys" have been "corrupted" somehow (Illidan, Arthas)
That's a good question. We don't have any in the works right now, but I think we're overdue for an Alliance villain. (_DonAdams)

Horde have explicit goals and the story serves those goals. can you honestly say the alliance does also beyond "hold the line"?
What do you perceive to be the Horde's explicit goals? I think you're falsely bundling all Horde up with Garrosh. (_DonAdams)
to blur the line between them. Not that it's fair just understandable how it can happen.
Yeah, conquest is an easy goal to push. What kind of large-scale goal could Alliance undertake? Perhaps reclamation. (_DonAdams)
Or maybe they're simply the first to discover and begin attacking a new threat. Definitely opportunities. (_DonAdams)

Khadgar has always been my favorite character, however now you've turned him into a traitor to the Alliance. Are you proud?
How is he a traitor? Because he doesn't kill Horde on sight? By that logic, all faction leaders are "traitors." Disagree. (_DonAdams)
… Please answer me, why this difference between Khadgar and Thrall? Any difference besides they belong to different factions?
Thrall isn't truly neutral, either. He's Horde, but he can set differences aside to work with Ally when needed. (_DonAdams)
Jaina behaved similarly before her city was nuked. Anduin and Varian can do it as well. (_DonAdams)

The story makes it seem like the Alliance only raids Orgrimmar BECAUSE of the Rebellion. Otherwise no. They've always been concerned with other things. It beggars belief, sometimes.
Thing is, Horde story is largely concerned with bigger things, too/ There's always a bigger threat than each other. (_DonAdams)
Or like Ashenvale: the Alliance was off fighting Old Gods and only taking minimal action against the Horde until the end.
Alliance move into the Barrens and torch Camp Taurajo, one of my favorite old quest hubs. We can go back and forth all day. (_DonAdams)
For what it's worth, I recall being f'ing terrified of night elves in Ashenvale. Really felt like enemy territory. (_DonAdams)
But, I mean, is this valuable feedback? How can we make our concerns better known or clearer?
It's all valuable. Specific examples and concerns help a lot more than broad assertions like "never" and "always." (_DonAdams)
I think we've drifted too far into stereotypes of "grr aggressive bloodthirsty orc" vs. "ye olde stoic knight defender." (_DonAdams)
I understand the overall desire is to show more proactive heroism from the Alliance. Give them some teeth. I agree. (_DonAdams)
For what it's worth, those themes work well on a broad scale. They are a good backdrop. We aim for variety in the details. (_DonAdams)

Is there any chance you guys might change Garrosh's fate? He's become a fairly interesting character, lots of room for growth
Pretty unlikely. (_DonAdams)

where are they in the game? Lorewise there may be a lot of casualties but we dont see them in game
Probably didn't stand out to Alliance players, but as Horde it was really grim. (_DonAdams)
Also a lot of the trash in SoO are literally Orgrimmar NPCs. The corpses strung about are old trainers, vendors, etc. (_DonAdams)

True. Does this mean that the Horde are villains? That's a problem. Too many mixed messages.
No, but Garrosh certainly became one. (_DonAdams)
so if the Alliance are heroes, and heroes react, what does that make the Horde?
Does that make the Alliance villains? No, it's a conflict the player characters would likely want to solve. (_DonAdams)
Imagine Varian suddenly decides humans are the supreme race, drums up an army, and begins executing dwarves and gnomes. (_DonAdams)
Horde are heroes as well. You're lumping all of the Horde in with Garrosh, who raised an evil regime from within the Horde. (_DonAdams)
You said the Ally, as heroes, generally react. Not saying Horde are villains, but it seems devs think they're more interesting.
I mean all heroes, in general, react to some conflict or situation. Horde players, too. (_DonAdams)

Reputation / Questing
what is the plan for lvl 100 content. Lvl 100 seems rather barren barring the daily, ashran, and the gear up.
Quest-wise, we have new quest lines coming out of the garrison every week at max level, as well as a legendary quest. (_DonAdams)
Beyond that, you have just as much or more as any other expac: dungeon, raid, outdoor max-level areas, world bosses, etc. (_DonAdams)

Do ya think garrison mine & garden for all make prof mats quite unbalanced against leather? Wtb slot-free skin hut
The barn provides a lot of leather, there are fewer herb/mine nodes in the world but many skinnable creatures (Muffinus)

Garrisons
is there still going to be a pass on follower traits vs. mission reqs? Timed Battle lights my list up like Xmas tree others NSM
Start a new toon, I don't think old data was updated, should be done as of next beta build, good trait/ability spread, LFFeeback (Muffinus)

Revisiting your tweet from 7 months ago. What was done to make garrisons alt-friendly? Beyond lvl3 plans, any shared progress?
That, plus work orders than can be queued, are the main features. We'll be monitoring feedback as the expac goes on. (Muffinus)

Garrison question: Are there enough of a specific race to have only them as followers (i.e. a Garrison with nothing but Gnomes)?
The Inn has a lot of each race, I want to say something like 15-20, should get you there, and 'rax can set your guards' race (Muffinus)

2014 Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest
The annual Halloween pumpkin contest is here, and Alex-the-lion already got a jump on things with this nice pumpkin:

The Halloween season has finally arrived, and we’re ready to cut straight to the heart of the holiday. If you're dying to pick up a knife and hack, gash, slash, and jab at something, then you might be excited to hear that as of October 14, Blizzard's 2014 Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest has officially begun! Unleash your magical axes, psi blades, chitinous claws, and other creative cutlery to carve up Blizzard-themed jack-o’-lanterns of epic awesomeness. If you’re unclear as to what epic awesomeness looks like in the flesh, you can check out previous pumpkins for some inspiration..

We’ll choose five of the grandest Cucurbita to earn one (1) Hallow's End Nemesis: The Headless Horseman Action Figure. Don’t delay; start carving right away! The twelfth annual pumpkin carving contest ends on October 29, so be sure to check out the contest page for rules and eligibility and get straight to slicing.

[grexly75]

Good to see they are working on the 1 to 90 leveling problem folks have been encountering.. More specific being the 1 to 85 leveling..

[Silvertaurus]

Shadow Priests were on the bottom whole expansion long, and "everything was fine". Now hunters are on exactly same level as priests (maybe lower AoE possiblities) and its unthinkable how low they are... Those comments from hunters, they are so low they dont even want to play game anymore. But from my expirience hunters damage is now equal to shadow priests.. (as said, beside the multitarget fights)

[TheWhiteFang]

Nice to see they adressing some issues this fast. Hopefully people will report problems in a constructive way instead of QQing so we can get a stable patch asap

[grexly75]

Nice to see they adressing some issues this fast. Hopefully people will report problems in a constructive way instead of QQing so we can get a stable patch asap

I think the way some people are it seems that it is too much of an impost to get them to actually report problems in a constructive way..

[TheWhiteFang]

I think the way some people are it seems that it is too much of an impost to get them to actually report problems in a constructive way..

Sad but true

[Ayporos]

Heart is still bugged for my friend and I. This is our 5th time tonight killing him, and other people seem to have no issue at all.

[holaadios]

Shadow Priests were on the bottom whole expansion long, and "everything was fine". Now hunters are on exactly same level as priests (maybe lower AoE possiblities) and its unthinkable how low they are... Those comments from hunters, they are so low they dont even want to play game anymore. But from my expirience hunters damage is now equal to shadow priests.. (as said, beside the multitarget fights)

Well, looking at logs warriors, locks and fire mages are way ahead of everyone else. I can say from own experience that they have killed hunters and UH dks.

[markdall]

Shadow Priests were on the bottom whole expansion long, and "everything was fine". Now hunters are on exactly same level as priests (maybe lower AoE possiblities) and its unthinkable how low they are... Those comments from hunters, they are so low they dont even want to play game anymore. But from my expirience hunters damage is now equal to shadow priests.. (as said, beside the multitarget fights)

It's not that hunters are just low. It's that they're much lower than expected. As in lower than Blizzard expected. So there's a bug somewhere for them to find and fix, even if instead of a code error it's an unforeseen interaction or something like that.

[Arkthus]

What's wrong with hunters ? I played yesterday and felt more powerful than ever after optimizing my gems and enchants...
Did solo Ulduar 25, To4W 10 and DS 10 fingers in the nose (was wiping on To4W last week, now I 2-shot the bosses), then went through the whole Blasted Lands quest line in 10 minutes with mobs being one-shot...

So I don't see what's wrong. (well, I have yet to see how this plays out within a group in PvE)

Maybe the problem is in PvP ?

[Ainyan]

What's wrong with hunters ? I played yesterday and felt more powerful than ever after optimizing my gems and enchants...
Did solo Ulduar 25, To4W 10 and DS 10 fingers in the nose (was wiping on To4W last week, now I 2-shot the bosses), then went through the whole Blasted Lands quest line in 10 minutes with mobs being one-shot...

So I don't see what's wrong. (well, I have yet to see how this plays out within a group in PvE)

Maybe the problem is in PvP ?

You did old content with a buff that allows you to mow the place down. (I mean, I was clearing the same stuff very quickly with my ilvl 518 fury warrior and ilvl 513 mage). Blasted Lands content is optimized for boosted characters. Try some current dungeon/raid content and then tell us how powerful it feels.

Not trying to be mean, but when the hunters are barely ahead of the tanks in Mythic SoO (after a patch where most tank damage has been negated), then there's probably a problem with the class.

[arcaneshot]

What's wrong with hunters ?

Hunters which used to destroy everyone on Thok the Bloodthirsty on Heroic before the patch are being dwarfed by other classes on Mythic post-patch. That was definitely a red flag.

[Frozenbeef]

Shadow Priests were on the bottom whole expansion long, and "everything was fine". Now hunters are on exactly same level as priests (maybe lower AoE possiblities) and its unthinkable how low they are... Those comments from hunters, they are so low they dont even want to play game anymore. But from my expirience hunters damage is now equal to shadow priests.. (as said, beside the multitarget fights)

Think it's because it's 3 specs vs 1 spec, so increasing shadow dps is much lower on the list of things to do >.< I agree it's very silly that they seem to be happy that certain specs are op/ underpowered for entire expansions :/

[SgtDidymus]

From what I understood in the hunter threads was that in WoD Blizz wanted the dedicated DPS classes to out shine the hybrid classes (as they should). When it was applied, all the other DPS classes were doing respectable damage while after hunters were tweeked *cough* taking away our 30% damage buff aspect of the hawk*cough* we were barely doing more damage than tanks. Hence the QQing.

[Shudder]

What's wrong with hunters ? I played yesterday and felt more powerful than ever after optimizing my gems and enchants...
Did solo Ulduar 25, To4W 10 and DS 10 fingers in the nose (was wiping on To4W last week, now I 2-shot the bosses), then went through the whole Blasted Lands quest line in 10 minutes with mobs being one-shot...

So I don't see what's wrong. (well, I have yet to see how this plays out within a group in PvE)

Maybe the problem is in PvP ?

Really? You don't see what's wrong? You're playing with toys, the big boys are raiding and having issues in the part of the game that matters. Try doing a raid that isn't designed for people 10 levels lower.

[Nachturnal]

Really? You don't see what's wrong? You're playing with toys, the big boys are raiding and having issues in the part of the game that matters. Try doing a raid that isn't designed for people 10 levels lower.

For once I agree with Shudder. How in the world does lower level content compare to current tier content? Of course you're gonna mow shit down one to 3 expansions old.

[Pacster]

Think it's because it's 3 specs vs 1 spec, so increasing shadow dps is much lower on the list of things to do >.< I agree it's very silly that they seem to be happy that certain specs are op/ underpowered for entire expansions :/

Yeah, and I just can't understand why Blizz is not getting the fundamental flaw that shadow has since BC. It does not work to have a class that has no initial burst, has low armor(and nothing that tanks for him) and can not run faster than enemies(first we flat out had not the ability. Now we face numerous snares and can't cast anything serious while running...and in pvp the other classes are not exactly slower overall). Those three things are rock, scissor, paper in PvE AND PvP. You got to be exceptional good at one of them if you are not good at the 2 others or you have no chance. Not being able to move while having to take massive damage and not being able to burst the enemy to prevent such damage is a combination that CAN NOT and DOES NOT work. Patch after patch after patch the same mistake.

And Blizz does it again this patch. This patch feels like a 30% nerf for shadow in solo/small group content(and that is about 90% of the playtime). I run around with ilvl577 and it feels like 550. And as if that would not be bad enough...no...we effectively can't heal ourselves anymore and we lost even more armor. On top of that we had very few spells we could cast while running(EVERYONE knew that shadow is dead while running)...so we could throw in a heal here or there to at least do SOMETHING, but ALL of them are gone now(renew gone, prayer of healing has a casttime now, halo etc. lost their healing ability)...and the icing to the cake is that devouring plague can often not be casted while running cause you NEED 3 orbs now to use it(and those orbs you only generate while standing or having procc-luck that isn't reliable at all.) and that our mind sear AoE is that weak that you are better off multidotting SW:P no matter how many targets are there.

I think it says a lot if Blizz has to hotfix the shadow and give him 10%+ damage on many important abilites just a day before the patch(that they have had on beta for like half a year) and it STILL is weak. As someone who had the luck to have chosen witchdoctor at release of Diablo III(those that have been there know what I mean), it really makes me wonder who is doing the balancing there.


On a different topic: I think the alliance would not be happy if Jaina did turn into a genocidal maniac(she is on the track there with Dalaran) and become the main villian and the Undead squashing Stormwind. The whole issue sounds to me like the alliance players will only be satisfied when they have an expansion where they can be the heroes that defeat the Horde as a whole...and that just isn't going to happen cause Blizz can't portray the Horde much weaker than they already did this expansion without of really pissing off horde players(after all horde players don't want to be shown as weak either). Last but not least we have played a lot of stories involving the alliance already(be it the whole story around Varian and his son, the Arthas storyline or the feud of the dwarves)...while up to Cata/MoP there was pretty much nothing that did shape the horde at all. Maybe it was time to give them some serious characters before turning back to alliance again(and seriously, we already have little prince as the next superhero in the making there)...

- - - Updated - - -

From what I understood in the hunter threads was that in WoD Blizz wanted the dedicated DPS classes to out shine the hybrid classes (as they should). When it was applied, all the other DPS classes were doing respectable damage while after hunters were tweeked *cough* taking away our 30% damage buff aspect of the hawk*cough* we were barely doing more damage than tanks. Hence the QQing.

Nope. As far as I read it they finally did NOT want to make them outshine the hybrids anymore cause they essentailly took hybrids their minor advantages(shadows can't heal anything anymore...their selfheal ain't much better than that of dedicated dds by now) that they used as cheap excuse to buff other dds dps by like 20% above that of hybrids(which resulted in hybrids not being taken to CMs etc.. Looks like being able to heal a bit is not exactly compareable to 20% more damage, who would have guessed????).

[Canderous1]

i really have no problem with where hunters are at right now. simply because of the entertainment i get at work from the fucking crying.

as if blizzard means for hunters to be bottom of the barrel... use your freaking heads guys obviously something isnt working out the way it was planned.

hey i have an idea, overreacting and raging on forums will fix it!

[Deleted]

i hope they fix it asap, a pure dps cannot do 40% less dmg than top specs, it is an insult!. so many clueless people here

[Voshod]

i really have no problem with where hunters are at right now. simply because of the entertainment i get at work from the fucking crying.

as if blizzard means for hunters to be bottom of the barrel... use your freaking heads guys obviously something isnt working out the way it was planned.

hey i have an idea, overreacting and raging on forums will fix it!

Funny you should say that, because if all hunters were quiet Blizzard wouldn't make us a top priority and we would be broken on release. The interesting part is that they can no longer just buff aspect of the hawk and call it a fix, so what are they going to do within a month that they couldn't do within the beta period.

Pure dps class performing so poorly is a concern, because there is nothing else hunters can do but dps. On top of it, now is the time guilds are looking to create rosters for the mythic progression and hunters will get to enjoy their class mount once again