So whats up with Nighthold and 7.1.5

[willemh]

The blue post only made me more confused. So what do we know.

- Nighthold is set to release January 17
- Patch 7.1.5 still needs a lot of balancing work
- Patch 7.1.5 is not linked to the release of Nighthold
- They woudn't drop a major patch in the middle of a raid release

So this can only mean 2 scenarios:
1) Patch 7.1.5 will hit before January 17 (which means quite a bit of rush, and I doubt there will be enough time to properly tune/balance everything with the hollidays incoming aswell)
2) Patch 7.1.5 will hit looooooong after January 17, and serves as a 'hidden nerf' and gives people fresh incentive to progress Nighthold if they got stuck at any point. (which means we do a full tier with the current unbalanced state of classes, which feels bad).

Both scenarios sound suboptimal if you ask me, I really would have linked 7.1.5 to Nighthold release if I was blizzard and delay Nighthold a little bit for 7.1.5 to get properly ready.

[effs]

7.1.5 is slated for release in the first couple weeks of January.

In the recent Q&A, it was mentioned that the next Q&A would be around Patch 7.1.5 release, maybe in the first couple of weeks of January

Tuning will have to be done after Nighthold releases to get a lot more data. There's only so much data you can get from a PTR, and even then it'll be kinda lop-sided because I doubt many casual players get on the PTR.

[Dawnrage]

I hope 7.1.5 makes it out before Nighthold personally, which I think is entirely possible. I really doubt the PTR is going to stay on for another month considering how long it's been there.

I think most of 7.1.5 is ready barring maybe more legendary tuning and of course DPS number tuning. Those don't take more than a month though, no way.

[Life-Binder]

3-4 weeks is enough to tune a bunch of numbers, even with holidays

and there will be hotfixes after NH is out anyway

[ArthasZZ]

Better tune before Nighthold starts. Or top guilds will play with 10 shadow priests

[Fleuria]

Better tune before Nighthold starts. Or top guilds will play with 10 shadow priests

s2m was gutted on ptr to only be good on short burst ST fights, otherwise in 7.1.5 shadow is still quite good on 1 target(top 1-5) and probably a little bit to op on spread out cleave which is technically meant to be there niche(kinda how like moonkin was in MoP and WoD).

Maybe they need to tone down the DoT numbers but that's about it, can't really have shadow be utter bottom like it was with out surrender.

7.1.5 will probably come the week before night hold.

[MrExcelion]

Week or two before Nighthold IMO. Hopefully to work out the kinks

[Sonrisa]

I wouldn't be surprised if the patch is before nighthold, and they do some extra tuning after the first heroic week, they've done it quite a few times already.

[Axelond]

7.1.5 will 100% be before nighthold, Probably 3rd or 10th. Imo 7.1.5 is a overall powernerf. I'm not 100% sure about stats. Secondaries get rekt and we get more prime stats. If you have 895 ring and neck it might be a stat power buff. But if you rely on secondaries or vers you will lose power(vers scaling is a 15% nerf while crit is getting a 12.5% nerf ).

Almost all the of the most powerful legendaries are getting nerfed and with probably 4 legendaries on average when nighthold opens most people will have one of the strong legendaries that are getting changed. So power nerf from legendaries.

Strong specs are getting nerfed. Everyone has been improving their roster with fire mages and hunters. Both are getting destroyed. Spriest are becoming ok/good instead of super good. I think generally there are more nerds than buffs so overall roster comp is getting weaker.

Dropping all of that above in like mythic week 3 would be a disaster. Nobody would be able to rekill bosses. Blizzard won't let that happen

[Krazzorx]

The blue responses were worded like that because what the players were really saying was: "you guys don't have a clue what you're doing. This patch won't be ready to go till February." So they answered it in very technical terms so as to not upset them.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Ya that last post is really odd. Makes me think it would be out before the raid, but the other three points contradict this.
So considering the fourth thing, does that mean it wouldn't be out for multiple months after the raid?

[Deleted]

7.1.5 will be either the 3rd or 10th. They've said they are pretty happy with it except for finalising the tuning. The "buff auras" they have applied show they know what they want out of that overall but haven't yet decided on specific abilities to buff and by how much, for those who have the buff aura. Everything else is pretty much done.

They don;t want to releae anything just before a holiday ( I actually suspect that 7.1.5 was going to be this week but they've done more on classes and legendaries than originally planned perhaps)

Therefore it will be after the holiday. Blizz are US based and their holidays aren;t as extended as Europe's.

They have stated they do not want to land a patch that has a bunch of class changes and number tunings in the middle of a raid tier. Therefore 7.1.5 cannot be after the Nighthold goes live. Also that 7.1.5 and Nighthold are independent: they won;t do it as one big bang.

Nighthold goes live on the 17th.

Therefore, there are only two possible dates as patches like that always come out on "server restart day". Hence the 3rd or 10th of January. It depends which they prefer, to have it hit just after the holidays end (lot sof people in Europe take that whoile week, but Americans don;t get so many bank holidays and usually less annual leave entitlement too) - in a "holiday week"...or whether they would be happy in 7.1.5 hitting only a week before the Nighthold opens.

I suspect they will go for the 3rd if possible, to have two clear weeks for players to get used to the many class/stat/item changes and to have some time to clear up any bugs etc in 7.1.5 before having to deal with any bugs and issues that arise with the Nighthold.

I'd guess it will be the 3rd of January (4th in Europe)

[Crowfeather]

Since Jan.1 falls on a Sunday, the observed holiday is gonna be on Monday the 2nd, so I seriously doubt that they would release a patch on their first work day of the year. I mean I could be wrong, but Jan 10 seems MUCH more likely

[BiggestNoob]

Strong specs are getting nerfed. Everyone has been improving their roster with fire mages and hunters.

Except neither is particularly strong.

When enough idiot mouthbreathers call something OP and Blizzard listens to people who can barely do LFR to decide what's balanced, the result is massive nerfs of things that aren't even good.

[Spotnick]

Reread what you posted and read between the lines.

It's evident they will release 7.1.5 after the first week of Nighthold when mythic difficulty is enabled.

It's usually where they do it, the balance patch always hit after the first week of heroic. They will use that first week of data to finalize the balance.

So.. January 24th.

[Deja Thoris]

Reread what you posted and read between the lines.

It's evident they will release 7.1.5 after the first week of Nighthold when mythic difficulty is enabled.

It's usually where they do it, the balance patch always hit after the first week of heroic. They will use that first week of data to finalize the balance.

So.. January 24th.

Theres nothing evident about that at all. Also, releasing a class balance patch on the first mythic week? Unlikely.

[Deleted]

Reread what you posted and read between the lines.

It's evident they will release 7.1.5 after the first week of Nighthold when mythic difficulty is enabled.

It's usually where they do it, the balance patch always hit after the first week of heroic. They will use that first week of data to finalize the balance.

So.. January 24th.

Wrong. 7.1.5 is not a balancing patch. Balancing patches are not pre-released on the ptr. Indeed they stated specifically that 7.1.5 will get it's own balancing patch soon, which means it is pretty much done except for finalising numbers.

7.1.5 brings major changes to some classes, major changes to everyone in the form of stats and legendaries.

It makes no sense at all to release a raid tier and then introduce major class and gear changes a few weeks later. Indeed, the Blue post itself notes that "even we agree that would be silly"

Lastly, they have themselves stated that the next Live Q&A will be "in the early weeks of January after 7.1.5"

So it will be 7.1.5>Nighthold>Balancing using raid data if necessary

It makes no sense to have everyone play a couple of weeks of Nighthold with current class and gear, then right away make heavy class and gear changes in the early period of a raid tier, then wait again to redo the numbers. Moreover, the 24th would mean only a week of raid data, which means most guilds would only have done a few hours in there and probably only a couple of bosses. They don;t do number balancing just using Method clearing normal and heroic modes in the first week.

Recent Blue posts show that the Nighthold only recently opened on PTR for testing. This indicates that they are done with class and item changes aside from deciding for some classes exactly where buffs and nerfs will happen, and that they are happy with 7.1.5 except for final numbers. It makes no sense to open up a raid tier for testing if you haven't mor eor less finalised the state of classes and gear people will be taking into it.

So 7.1.5 is going to be before Nighthold. It makes no sense to let people raid for a week and then upend their classes and gear with major changes to them. For one thing all those first runs would have to be ignored as data because some classes are having such major reworks. For exmaple, you wuold have to discount the Shadow Priest dps data as they are very different in 7.1.5

If they were even thinking of doing 7.1.5 after Nighthold, they might as well do them together. It would actually be less raid disruptive. Just open the raid an dlet people take their "new" classes and "new" gear into it. Not let them raid for a week with "live" and then throw a spanner into thr works with heavy changes a week later.

[Arbs]

7.1.5 is slated for release in the first couple weeks of January.



Tuning will have to be done after Nighthold releases to get a lot more data. There's only so much data you can get from a PTR, and even then it'll be kinda lop-sided because I doubt many casual players get on the PTR.

Well not only that, but only a small portion of players posts on the PTR forums & give feedback.

[Deleted]

Most likely 715 will get released atleast at 17th but not after that
Some tunning isnt a issue pach to be delayed its can be done easly with hotfixes
But my best bet is january 10th(for US) because players will need some time to adapt to changes to their toons(i will be more hapy on 27th dec as date but looks like thats wont gona hapen ...)

[MV Kaa]

Guys, they said 7.1.5 and NH are independent, but that doesnt mean they cant be released at the same time as well.

But im sure it will come out the week or 2 weeks before NH