So Chimera Shot was nerfed by 20% in PvP only...

[Kelato]

...and as they did not do the same with Execute it seems that the nerf to Execute was targeted at PVE too.

I'm asking myself why did they nerf a class that was doing fine in PVE but was far form being overpowered and at the same time buff two specs of an already strong class (hunter), buff the single target dps of one of the best specs for single target (feral) and don't nerf the strongest (overpowered) spec (arcane) at all?

Blizzard's inconsistency in their decisions ("we don't want spells to be different in pve and pvp" --> still adding several exceptions) and their arbitrariness regarding class balance is really annoying to say the least.

They always say they decide things as team but to me it seems more like that everyone gets to change things independently without there being one big consent.

[Deleted]

They should just say fuck the baddies that can't read and add a pve and pvp usage of every spell. It's stupid to make exceptions for just a few abilites. Either all of them gets that treatment or none of them.

[Icecreamcake]

Pardon my french, but this nerf to execute fucking sucks. No fucking reason for doing so. Either allow execute to be used earlier like at 25% or give some damage buffs elsewhere

[Schwert]

Still hoping BT/MS gets buffed with a modifier to MS damage in PvP because lolarmsinpvprightnow.
Raiding right now is absolutely miserable without tier bonuses - which is why I assume we got nerfed? I'm not going to bother thinking about this.

[Sliske]

Anyone else hope if they do buff us again its not a stupid mastery or execute buff?

I have like 5 dps spells. Having one of them hit 400k+ another hit 120k and then the rest hit 20k-30k is fucking lame.

Seasoned warrior buffs or whirlwind changes so it does increased damage to a single target. Howling blast style.

Slam with the arms 2 set can go fuck it self.

[Bigbazz]

How about having Mastery cover more ground than what it does now, so that spec doesn't scale in a gimpish way.

[Rorke]

Execute nerf was a PvE nerf. They nerfed Execute to nerf Sudden Death. Let's be honest here, pre 6.1 Sudden Death overshadowed Slam where it needed a nerf. Nerfing Execute was the only real way to go about it.

I'm not sure why people are even mad about this. The class is fine, its still mindlessly overpowered in PvP.

How about having Mastery cover more ground than what it does now, so that spec doesn't scale in a gimpish way.

That would make Arms too powerful. Mastery is fine the way it is.

[Archimtiros]

They should just say fuck the baddies that can't read and add a pve and pvp usage of every spell. It's stupid to make exceptions for just a few abilites. Either all of them gets that treatment or none of them.

I've been saying this for years. It would be the #1 greatest benefit to the game they could make for years to come.

Issue is that it actually is quite a large task, really isn't easy. It's something you do between expansions for sure. All that frontloaded work is mitigated though, by the fact that it would vastly improve their ability to balance and fine tune without so much troubleshooting and cut their future work in half, at least.

- - - Updated - - -

Execute nerf was a PvE nerf. They nerfed Execute to nerf Sudden Death. Let's be honest here, pre 6.1 Sudden Death overshadowed Slam where it needed a nerf. Nerfing Execute was the only real way to go about it.

I'm not sure why people are even mad about this. The class is fine, its still mindlessly overpowered in PvP.



That would make Arms too powerful. Mastery is fine the way it is.

Mastery is horrible the way it is because it is not in keeping with the philosophy of the game's gearing paradigm. It's neither intuitive, nor intelligent and requires "single spec" players to gear multiple gear sets or purposefully gimp themselves. It's quite silly all around and doesn't add any actual depth or meaningful decision making to the game, it only constrains players.

Sudden Death really isn't and wasn't overpowered and the whole of it is that Warriors absolutely didn't need a PvE single target nerf, regardless of where it came from. However Slam absolutely was (and still is slightly) underpowered; that however is mostly based on its obtuse design.

[bladeXcrasher]

That would make Arms too powerful. Mastery is fine the way it is.

Fine the way it is for PvP, yeah. It's shit for PvE outside of anything but pure single target, and that relies on lucky execute crits under buffs. That is far from fine. I'd be happy if they just gave arms the balance druid treatment and make it a flat damage increase. At least as boring as that is, mastery wouldn't be useless for aoe and could be used to adjust arms damage without putting us in the state we are right now. Added bonus of making mastery the 'tuning knob' that they said they wanted it to be when the stat was introduced into the game.

[CollisionTD]

How about having Mastery cover more ground than what it does now, so that spec doesn't scale in a gimpish way.

Suggested a million times, not gonna happen. :\

[Archimtiros]

Suggested a million times, not gonna happen. :\

I actually had several conversations in person, the given answer is "that's why you gear two sets". I don't agree with this, think it is silly, unintuitive and punishing, but not my decision to make.

[keishton]

I thought cels talon in the interview said they were fine with people having to get different gear for different fights. So mastery for single target and crit etc for multi target is probs intended by them.

[Archimtiros]

I thought cels talon in the interview said they were fine with people having to get different gear for different fights. So mastery for single target and crit etc for multi target is probs intended by them.

That wasn't Celestalon (if you are referring to the interview a few months ago), it was Kris Zeirhut, another designer (and their lead).

They are fine with it, but that doesn't make it a smart decision. The whole concept of interchangeable loot system is that every piece is useable by everyone. You can swap specs and use the same gear (Ret - Holy/Prot - Fury).

This doesn't happen with Arms, at least not reasonably. And saying "thats why you have two gear sets" is ludicrous. To say that I (if I wanted to play purely Arms) need to gather 1.5-2x the amount of gear as others so that I can swap as needed in an effort to be competitive? That's a joke or a slap in the face, I'm not sure which.

The final nail in the coffin... its unintutive. 6.0 was all about making things easier on people, there was a ridiculously over hyped Blizzcon panel about it, hell it was the lynchpin of Warlords. Removing gems, removing reforging, removing enchants, everything that causes players to have to think about what they are doing. I was sitting in the front row when they went through the (ridiculous) example of a player not understanding what stats were good or bad, or having to sim out characters before they could figure out how to use a new piece of gear.

This idea of Mastery belittles that concept entirely, because that's exactly what it does! If I'm a new player, how do I know that piece of Mastery gear is doing exactly nothing for me anytime I hit Whirlwind? Maybe if Mastery wasn't hidden (I know its in the character sheet) in the spell book, I'd have a bit more understanding of what it actually did! It doesn't really matter how you try to justify it, it's a terrible design choice that adds nothing but confusion and more work for the players.

[Scharnhorst]

The latest Hotfix also confirms that the Execute nerf was intended for PVE (at least for Arms) as well: They restored it's damage for Fury and Prot.

[Archimtiros]

The latest Hotfix also confirms that the Execute nerf was intended for PVE (at least for Arms) as well: They restored it's damage for Fury and Prot.

Well it could have been aimed at Arms PvP too, but I don't think it much matters. Calilng it PvP was only logic seeing as none of the specs were particularly strong in PvE to begin with.

[Ssateneth]

Protection Execute 6.0.3 Live: 704% weapon damage (320% * 2x * 1.1x hotfix)
Protection Execute 6.1 PTR: 620% weapon damage (310% * 2x)
Protection Execute 6.1 Live: 700% weapon damage

Arms Execute 6.0.3 Live: 165% weapon damage + 16.5% per rage point up to a maximum of 660% weapon damage
Arms Execute 6.1.0 PTR: 150% weapon damage + 15.0% per rage point up to a maximum of 600% weapon damage
Arms Execute 6.1.0 Live: 135% weapon damage + 13.5% per rage point up to a maximum of 540% weapon damage
(Mastery was not buffed or nerfed during these tests)

Fury Execute in 6.0.3 Live: 352% weapon damage (320% * 1.1x hotfix)
Fury Execute in 6.1.0 Live: 350% weapon damage

Arms execute got nerfed by 18.18% between 6.0.3 live and 6.1.0 live
Protection execute got nerfed by 0.57% between 6.0.3 live and 6.1.0 live
Fury execute got nerfed by 0.57% between 6.0.3 live and 6.1.0 live

[Deleted]

I would like to know what kind of arm-twisting it would take for Blizzard to give up and separate abilities for PvP across the board. As much heat as they take from both camps always saying that one is being sacrificed for the other, I'm sure they feel pretty good about having the other side of the fence as an implicit scapegoat to fall back on in weird times.

It's not like separating them would actually lead to any guaranteed glorious balance. Even games that only focus on one thing, including other Blizzard games, usually aren't balanced. They tend to fall under the umbrella of balanced enough, but even current WoW is comfortably within that range a lot of the time, I'd say. I'm sure it would be marginally better once they really hunkered down and started tweaking things, but I also think any imbalance left alone would be scrutinized that much harder with no excuses left. I dunno how motivated they are to invite that.

[Ghaleon]

They should just say fuck the baddies that can't read and add a pve and pvp usage of every spell. It's stupid to make exceptions for just a few abilites. Either all of them gets that treatment or none of them.

I've wished they would do that for years now, would solve so many problems.

[Airlick]

Execute nerf was a PvE nerf. They nerfed Execute to nerf Sudden Death. Let's be honest here, pre 6.1 Sudden Death overshadowed Slam where it needed a nerf. Nerfing Execute was the only real way to go about it.

Even the buffed Slam is still weaker than Sudden Death on ST fights. Or rather, it's slightly better before execute phase, but after getting there you won't ever touch Slam again. So it's still completely useless.

[Bigbazz]

Having separate balance in PVP to PVE is not a new thing for Blizzard either, we had it in Diablo 2. I don't understand why it's hard for them to just do this in WoW, having the game constantly bouncing between various stages of unbalanced because of the imposibility of balancing PVE and PVP at the same time is stupid. The design for Mastery is stupid, they could easily adjust numbers and wiggle things around to allow Mastery to be useful beyond single target abilities just as they could balance Execute nicely by simply having 2 versions for PVE/PVP.

Arms as we have it now is sad compared to previous expansions, it was beautiful in both Dragon Soul and SOO as a playstyle.. Most of us were content to live with it while it was competitive, but as soon as that edge gets taken away we all start to remember how shitty the spec is as a design.

Problem is that Fury is not any better, mindless playstyle heavily reliant on RNG. Gladiator I personally love but Blizzard clearly don't want it to be on competitive levels with other specs.