"Multistrike is being removed"

[Boottybounce]

Mistweavers, Windwalkers? Oh no...

Multistrike is being removed and other secondary stats will have changes as well.

[Mokuna]

They'll just change mechanics and tuning because it's all about tuning in the end, windwalkers were just fine going haste/crit in mop and they'll probably be in legion too

[taliey]

To be fair, I remember a common complaint against WOTLK dungeons were 'lol faceroll, spam aoes, no ccs,' so it's a little bit confusing to see multistrike added.

[Raugnaut]

I can see blizzard moving most MS mechanics back to the MoP system (Shamans especially, their mastery has been extremely lacking this expansion and will likely be reverted, unless Elemental recieves a complete revamp). So, chances are, Tiger Strikes and stuff will go back to the MoP version. Of course, theres the possibility that its removed as the ONLY thing it does is give passive extra damage, but eh.

[Elestia]

Multistrike = Improved Crit, esp for classes with guaranteed crit abilities. It's an unnecessary stat entirely and is counterproductive to balancing burst.

[Raugnaut]

To be fair, I remember a common complaint against WOTLK dungeons were 'lol faceroll, spam aoes, no ccs,' so it's a little bit confusing to see multistrike added.

Multistrike doesn't really have anything to do with WotLK dungeons though, and was blizzards attempt to create a stat out of a relatively common mechanic that could previously be found on a good number of specs.

[Manabomb]

Multistrike = Improved Crit, esp for classes with guaranteed crit abilities. It's an unnecessary stat entirely and is counterproductive to balancing burst.

I wouldn't say multistrike has had the much effect on balancing as letting class mechanics be completely idiotic for little to no reason. Crit and Multistrike share a symbiotic relationship and the biggest problem with that is classes weren't balanced around this relationship. Multistrike is an interesting stat and it's relationship with crit is just as interesting, the problem comes in where you can't customize the stats you want beyond getting a piece of gear with those stats on it combined with the developers being unwilling to make other stats good for many of the multistrike reliant classes (MW and WW haste/mastery comes to mind here, but there are other examples of secondary stats for certain classes being skewed and obvious fixes that could be made toward it.)

The biggest problem with multistrike stems from the developers unwillingness to balance specs around stats as they would rather balance the stats around specs, which hasn't and doesn't work. I've said it before, in a game without reforging and you're a class that has a shit tier mastery or haste isn't anywhere near as good as crit, you're stuck with stats that do little to nothing for you instead of actually making the player think about which stat is better. In a game where every stat has a difference of maybe a tenth of a dps per point it no longer matters that you got a vers-multistrike piece as a ret paladin. Min-maxing will always be a side effect, but lessening the punishment for not having your specs "best stats" because you aren't designed around multistrike being as attractive as haste is stupid when there's talks of balance and obvious work that needs to be done.

But hey, who cares about that right? They are just going to redesign most specs with Legion and throw multistrike out the window because it's too "difficult" to balance something that wouldn't be a problem if balancing was their actual goal.

[Totaltotemic]

Crit and Multistrike share a symbiotic relationship and the biggest problem with that is classes weren't balanced around this relationship. Multistrike is an interesting stat and it's relationship with crit is just as interesting

What? They have no relationship to each other at all. Multistrike is an RNG chance to do 0.6X% more damage. Crit is an RNG chance to do X% more damage. The only thing they even have in common is that they both are stats that increase how much damage/healing you do, but not on every attack. The two stats do not interact with each other any differently than they interact with any other stat, so how is that interesting?

All of the actually interesting parts about Multistrike were just spec mechanics arbitrarily tied to the Multistrike stat. Things like Jade Mists for WW or GotO spawns for BrM (WW doesn't even have any MS mechanics since the removal of Tiger Strikes proccing from multistrikes) could just be 1.67x Crit chance or 1.97x Versatility or 1.5x Haste and nothing would be functionally any different at all except stat priorities would shift around a bit.

Balancing Multistrike isn't difficult. Multistrike has literally no special interactions with the game that Crit doesn't already have. They're getting rid of it just because it's a boring stat that's practically a copy of an already existing stat, not because it's difficult to have in the game. Where has multistrike ever even been an issue in WoD except for just being boring?

[Julmara]

well versality is more boring than multistrike i rather see it go away than multistrike

[Deleted]

Multistrike was a really interesting stat, especially for frost mages and ele shamans and some healers, not really for windwalkers tho. It still sucks to see multistrike go and versatility stay, makes little sense to me.

[Metaslave]

I never really notice if anything multistrikes, except maybe my expel harm. Will not be missed.

[Raugnaut]

well versality is more boring than multistrike i rather see it go away than multistrike

Versatility is actually quite nice for PvP, as it serves as a defensive stat as well as an offensive one. If you are using one of the on-use versa trinkets, you can use it as either an offensive or defensive trinket, for either ~20% extra damage done or 10% less damage taken.

- - - Updated - - -

Multistrike was a really interesting stat, especially for frost mages and ele shamans and some healers, not really for windwalkers tho. It still sucks to see multistrike go and versatility stay, makes little sense to me.

The only reason it was "interesting" for some dps specs and healers was because blizzard made it effect mechanics that already previously existed in some form or another.

Healers - Not many healers actually had an interaction with Multistrike beyond more healing... Monks were really the only one with any extra MS interaction. Heck, even Disc, the only MS interaction you got was when a heal crit AND MSd. (Holy just got more healing from MS, a boring passive)

Tanks - BrM and Blood had previously existing mechanics tied in with Multistrike. GotO had a chance to proc on damage, and Runic Strikes was the old Scent of Blood (10 RP and +20% healing on next Death Strike on each melee attack). Guardian's MS effect will be missed (I forsee Guardians just getting an extra +20-30% stamina modifier, as their MS effect was retardedly strong with even 50% MS, easily obtainable. 2 mil + HP pools anyway? Guardian neva die). Paladin was a more passive +30-60% healing recieved, subject to RNG (Not too fun). Warrior was more fun from a theoritical standpoint. 9% HP regeneration a second sounds real fun, which is what you would get if you had 100% MS, with no haste (If you decided to yield a dagger, you got 15% hp regen a second. 1% haste added roughly 1% of the healing amount, so 50% haste would have resulted in a theoretical 23% hp regen a second. Warrior neva die), but instead was reduced to uselessness as it was too weak with anything lower then 80% MS.

Unholy was slightly fun due to it having the old Necrosis effect (Nostalgia!).

Survival - +% extra damage on MS (So MS was essentially a better Crit)

Sub- Interesting effect. Your bleeds tick everytime you MS with Backstab. Unfortunate, though, that it just equates to more damage, so ~3% extra damage with MS?

Ele Shamans - Multistrike took the place of their mastery. Got new craptastic mastery in place of it. Also, their bonus to MS was mainly 20% extra damage on MS, so MS just became a much better form of crit. Oh, it does proc lighting shield, but meh, just more damage.

Frost Mages - Each MS adds 15% chance to trigger Brain Freeze. Somewhat interesting.

A few interesting cases of MS, but in most cases MS just became a better form of crit. Of course, something to note is that blizzard had to add extra words to note that Multistrikes also work on a good number of passives and such, meaning that Blizzard considered MS to be somewhat confusing. Yea, I can see why its gone.

I'm not surprised either. I recall posting my suprise at the addition of MS, stating that it was just a cheaper, weaker crit. My feelings changed slightly when I saw a few of the tanking interactives with MS, but I was mostly dubious of its addition.

Versatility, on the other hand, offers an option that increases defensive capability at the cost of a slight offensive loss. 1% damage from Versa currently costs 130 versa rating, compared to the 100 rating cost of 1% haste/crit, and sometimes mastery. In exchange it brings a .5% damage reduction benefit, so a person stacking Versa on every piece will deal ~15% less damage, but also take ~25% less damage. For 99% of raiders, its not the lack of 15% damage that causes wipes, but the fact that they fail some mechanics which can cause wipes. An example is that in a clearing of Mythic BRF a week or two ago as a RL, I noticed that the damage for my group was good enough to the point that we would quickly finish the fights, but on a few fights (Flamebender in particular, Blast Furnance was another) people would drop off from the AoE, resulting in a wipe. Given that very, VERY few healers were queing for Mythic BRF, I just had as many people swap over to the Kazzak avoidance trinket as possible. We did not have any problems downing the other boss fights, as ~35% less damage from mechanics (20% basic nerf, 20% aoE reduction) resulted in loleasymode mechanics.

For a number of guilds that are struggling with progression now, having all their members stack as much Versatility as possible would probably increase their progression by 4-5 bosses at the very least. Its NOT lack of dps that wipes guilds now, its lack of avoidance of mechanics, and Versatility greatly helps with that. Of course, people will go "BUT MECHANICS KILL", but no. As it stands right now, there are almost NO mechanics that result in an instant death/wipe. Instead, what results in a death/wipe is people taking 5 ticks of the mechanic rather then 2-4 ticks. 25% damage reduction with stacking Versatility would essentially result in significantly less deaths, and thus significantly more downings of bosses.

[Lamortykins]

For a number of guilds that are struggling with progression now, having all their members stack as much Versatility as possible would probably increase their progression by 4-5 bosses at the very least

What are you smoking/where can I get some?

25% damage reduction with stacking Versatility

This is an absurd idea.

The maximum amount of versatility I could get with my gear right now is 9.49%. Buffed. That's less than a 5% damage taken reduction.

In changing stats, I would lose almost 10% of my dps in a single target fight.

You are suggesting that the raid should take a 10% dps reduction in exchange for a 5% damage taken reduction.

To reach the numbers that you are suggesting (25% damage taken reduction) you would need 6,500 versatility. If I could convert all of my current stats into versatility I would not come close to that number, and I would lose an absurd amount of dps.

No. This idea is asinine.

Versatility is not bad because of what it does. Versatility is bad because it scales like shit.

For a class that does not interact with crit (like fire mages), +1% crit is roughly equal to +1% damage overall. 1% crit = 110 crit rating. 1% versatility = 130 versatility rating. Crit alone literally scales almost 30% better than versatility.

Versatility is a bad stat and forcing your raid to stack it will not help you progress by 4-5 bosses. 5% reduced damage taken is not going to help you kill Tyrant if you're hitting the edict/tempest combo in phase 1, etc.

[Anokii]

I never really notice if anything multistrikes, except maybe my expel harm. Will not be missed.

Agreed, I never really notice either, it will not be missed. RIP Multistrike.

[Deleted]

The fact that WW used to be all around Multistrike was awful. The introduction of this stat is one of the reasons that make WW PvP-wise totaly suck.

I won't miss MS.

[Mormolyce]

It was simply thematically too similar to crit IMO. Interesting to see if they'll add something to replace it.

[antico]

while they're at it, can we get rid a Versatility at well, please ? thanks very much!

I know Blizz was promoting Vers to be the next big thing, even made it as far as putting it on the legendary ring, but common, let be honest vers is even more boring than stamina

[Tankitbetter]

I said it when they announced it - there's no point to multistrike. As a basic stat it does exactly what crit does - increases the damage of a single attack. Other stats provide different effects - versatility has the passive reduced damage, haste reduces cast times, GCDs, or increases resource generation and mastery varies from class to class. They forced MS to be interesting on certain classes and specs by tying in things they didn't need to.

[Kuniku]

When they first announced Multistrike i was quite excited at the prospect of an elemental shaman stacking mastery and using echoes for ALL THE EXTRA LIGHTNING, and then they removed all the masteries and what not that effectively were mutlistrike and it made me sad =(

hopefully they'll bring back the multistrike masteries again, i always enjoyed those.

[Terahertz]

It's not like multistrike was exciting as WW monk. I never noticed the "echo'd" abilities and all MS did was water down our numbers to make up for the stat being added.