Patch 3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking

[Boubouille]

3.0.2 - On Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking

With the release of upcoming content patch players will see a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs that were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs that only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance.

Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications.

IMPORTANT! Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. It should not be assumed that one class' current performance relative to others in beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many may feel the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all of those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

There are thirty or so different categories into which buffs and debuffs fit. Here you will find a comprehensive list of the changes made broken down by category and which spells/talents are in that category.

• Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
• Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
• Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
• Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
• Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
• Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
• Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination's Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
• Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter's Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
• Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
• Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
• Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter's Chill
• Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
• Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
• Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
• Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
• Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
• Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
• Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
• Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
• Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
• Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
• Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
• Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
• Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
• Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
• Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
• Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
• Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
• Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
• Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
• Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
• Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.
  

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants spirit and intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the "Increased Spell Power Buff" category are also not all the same potency, as they scale and grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of attack power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the "mana battery" roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

Below you will find a list of the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that list of changes:

• Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
• Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
• Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
• Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
• Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
• Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
• Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
• Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
• Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
• Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
• Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
• Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
• Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
• Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
• Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
• Hunter's Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
• Improved Hunter's Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
• Sting (Hunter exotic pet - Wasp): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
• Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
• Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
• Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
• Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
• Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
• Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
• Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
• Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
• Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

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[lemuever17]

I think this will be one of the biggest changes of PVE in WLK

but as a mage i have a question, does this means only one school of spells can enjoy the benefits during a raid fight? (etc, there are one deep fire mage and one deep frost mage, but there is only winterchill or Improved Scorch can effect on boss)

[Varithorn1]

I agree with Lemuever17. But this is a negative change, here me out. Many cool new abilities were implemented that really get affected by this, such as Earth and Moon, Icy Talons, and the new Rampage. It is almost a guarantee that this will cause some classes to be needed more than others, creating raid imbalance and possible uselessness of certain specs. Blizzard said they wanted it so that you wouldn't need a set group of 25 people (or 10 people) for raids aside from healers and tanks, but this makes it so that some classes will see very few raids due to buffing mechanics. If the second "TBA Bleed" is better than the arms warrior Blood Frenzy, it is gg for them in PvE. So, in conclusion, this is a silly idea, and makes a bunch of neat talents useless.


Edit: Another thing is, if certain classes can't contribute leet utilities to make up for lower dps, than they won't be needed ever for raids, if someone else brings the same utility with more dps.

[Xnzz]

I may be reading wrong, but doed BL/Heroism raidwide?

[Manip]

Misery = 3% Hit, doesn't stack with Imp. Faire Fire (and boonkins are needed for the Earth & Moon Debuff)
Shadow Weaving = Self Buff only
VT = Nerfed. Equal to Ret Pallys and or Survival Hunters

So with less utility than a Ret Pally, Survival Hunter, or Boonkin then why bring a Shadow Priest?

Are Shadow Priests being nerfed out of the raid and sent back to PvP? Certainly seems that way...

[Flamingcloud]

With weaving, imp scorch, misery gone. No stacking on might/battleshout, cor/faerie fire, etc, raid dps is likely to actually go down in 3.0.2.

[myarluu]

I may be reading wrong, but doed BL/Heroism raidwide?

with a 5 minute anti bl/heroism debuff.
which blowss

[Merin]

All this change does is swap the type of raid stacking you'll be doing. Waste of time.

I certainly pity the Warlocks who wanted to raid as Affliction though, or the Priests who wanted to raid as Disc.

Also, Moonkins just won the lottery in their avalanche of raid buffs.

[myarluu]

we don't care?

and besides blizzards target audience for their games is casuals who don't have alot of time to play

[Karpalo]

What they just made is that they turned this game in to rogue/ hunter fest. You take few buffing classes ie. ench shaman and retri paladin and stack the rest dps spots as hunters and rogues. This change is really made in favor of the purest dps classes.

[sranf]

Could they dumb the game down any further?

[lemuever17]

well, I'm looking into it and get confusion, here is the talent in build 8820

Your Scorch spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Fire, Frost and Arcane damage, increasing damage taken by 2% and lasts 30 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.


Gives your Frost damage spells a 33% chance to apply the Winter's Chill effect, which increases the chance Arcane, Fire and Frost spells will critically hit the target by 2% for 15 sec. Stacks up to 5 times.

is that means we can still have two mages in one raid?

[Karpalo]

# Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
# Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.

[myarluu]

Could they dumb the game down any further?

i hope not ...

[Karpalo]

Any class with any utility is doomed to one spot in raid. And the class that utility spot is filled already is doomed to be left out.


AND THAT`S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES!!!!

[Tigercat]

What they just made is that they turned this game in to rogue/ hunter fest. You take few buffing classes ie. ench shaman and retri paladin and stack the rest dps spots as hunters and rogues. This change is really made in favor of the purest dps classes.

ENHANCE.

Sorry folks, I dislike stupid people like Karpalo anyway and people saying "ench" shaman is a pet peeve of mine.

[lemuever17]

# Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
# Winter's Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.

this means bliz want to change mage's talent?

[Karpalo]

ENHANCE.

Sorry folks, I dislike stupid people like Karpalo anyway and people saying "ench" shaman is a pet peeve of mine.

Stfu and plant that wf totem :P

[Flamingcloud]

Not like you even need enhancement shamans, all their buffs are available from other sources... Depending on what the flat spell dmg on totem of wrath is, all their buffs might be available or surpassed by other classes as well, not to mention heroism stacking gone. These changes absolutely decimate shaman.

[Tigercat]

Stfu and plant that wf totem :P

Gonna be too busy keeping Rampage up.