Upcoming Class Change Highlights (Part 1), Blue posts

[Langebrød]

LULWOT? Horrible.

SPs are fine in PVE, but need MAJOR changes in PVP to be able to PVP as anything else than disc spec.

lolwut.
Rogues have 1 viable pvp spec, why should everyone else have 2-3 ?
Disc owns, go respec.

[gortz]

I really dislike the new HfB. Sure, they fixed the 'issues' from it staying stacked but say we are doing a 5man or trash, we're no longer going to have HfB up since we dont really use rupture on trash. This is a little different in a 25man yes. Also, HfB goes further and further away from being viable in PvP which the old one kinda was, just not as viable :/

Need more assass buffs.

[Moriroken]

# Hunger for Blood – instead of a self-buff, this ability can only be used when there is a bleed effect on the target. However, it has no stacks and grants a 15% damage bonus.

Do people have a hard time understanding english? Why is everyone screaming "nerf"?

This is the old HfB:
# Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 3%. If used while a Bleed effect is afflicting you, it will attempt to remove it and refund 15 energy. This effect can be stacked up to 3 times. Lasts 30 sec.

Ergo, when stacked 3 times, it gives you a 9% dmg increase. Now they made it so that it only works with a bleed effect (opening with a Garrote, then Rupture) and it gives a 15% dmg increase (which is 6% more dmg!!). In addition to that, you dont need to stack it 3 times, meaning that IF you fuck up your rotation, you dont have to spend 90 energy to get it back up (assuming they dont change the energy cost).

Because, my good friend remanis, people LOVE to complain ... I can't for the life of me see how anyone can see this as a nerf, and yet everyone is adamant it is.

There is only one way this is a possible change .. not a nerf, a change, because it means altering your rotation in a single situation. That situation is if you're in a raid with no fury warriors, no arms warrior (ok, that might happen), and no Deep wounds spec'd warrior tank and no dps druids or druid tanks. It also assumes your standard rotation does NOT include rupture, which I guess could happen as well.

So, assuming this is one single, contrived case ... it's simple, start using rupture instead of either envenom or evis (you decide which is better), and get an extra 6% damage boost. If you have a warrior or druid in the raid - big bonus, because then your target will be absolutely boombarded with bleed damage, pretty much guaranteeing you your 15% increase AND it costs you a boat load less energy.

*sigh* ... fickle people are fickle.

[cthu]

As hunter, i may take the explo nerf pretty well, apart the stealth side of it, but i still think what we are lacking now, is more of the utilty side of the spec, as gc said, dps compares to usefulness of the spec in raid, and i still dont see why retpal easily competing with us on the dps charts are still able to resplenish much more efficiently than us, as for shadow priests.

they should still fix trap mastery as they promised during beta and introduce new survival glyphs to complete the spec balance, maybe 1s explo shot shorter cd, or one extra tick, something real specific, more than useless steadynerfed shot glyph

[dynapse]

I'm sorry, but this analysis is extremely flawed.

Clearly the problem is that hybrids are exactly this: Hybrids, thus, there is a high chance that some %-age of the class in the stats was either Tank or Healer, doing significantly less dmg but being averaged in.

That's why Priest/Druid are so low. You very rarely have more than 1 or max 2 dps druids/priests in raidgroups, but very often have 2-4 heal priests/druids or tank druids.

That's why Paladins are only relatively low, because if you factor out the holy's and prot's, ret's are doing far too much dmg in Naxx (undead etc.)

That's probably also why the DKs are so low (which was surprising to me at first), because there are a fair share of DK tanks.

The only real issue I see is the rogue one.


TLDR SHORTCUT: Don't trust any statistics that you haven't falsified yourself

Good point, except that the source he used is compiled from using the TOP 50 DPS reports of each class, in other words, tanks (who are not in the top dps per class) are omitted from the data.

TLDR SHORTCUT: know what you're talking about before writing anything.

[Poysonivy]

Druid DPS is pretty low because 75% are in tankform for most of the time, and the other 25% is in kitty form and prolly with a tank build too. I usually end up above the warrior tank and below the 5 other dps.

But i've seen some nice DPS reports where Druids top the charts, but it all depends on the shape of the rest of the raid. Thats why numbers in general need to be looked at from all angles. Some classes help each other, boosts like heroism or the horde counterpart which I forgot atm help a lot. Numbers are one thing, beating the encounters is another.

[AetherMcLoud]

lolwut.
Rogues have 1 viable pvp spec, why should everyone else have 2-3 ?
Disc owns, go respec.

There's a big difference between having one VIABLE spec as priests have, and having one OWNAGE spec and 2 other VIABLE specs as rogues have.

[Kirilmkd]

This link provides me with the following information that I will qualify by saying I removed Thaddius from the data, as it skews (overemphasizes) differences. (Loatheb can probably be removed as well, but the values change too slightly to bother). % Difference is the % difference from the cumulative mean dps. Source data is the measure of average of top 50 reports, and thus most likely does not include the most recent rounds of nerfs (warriors, hunters), but would include buffs (mages).

Class Mean % Difference
Warrior 4,520 6.42%
Mage 4,498 5.90%
Hunter 4,424 4.15%
Warlock 4,401 3.62%
Death Knight 4,363 2.71%
Shaman 4,211 -0.87%
Paladin 4,094 -3.62%
Rogue 4,060 -4.42%
Priest 3,959 -6.79%
Druid 3,946 -7.10%
Mean 4,247

What is worth taking from this? Assuming the goal is for the pure dps classes to be 5% higher than hybrids, Mage, Hunter, Warlock dps is properly higher than most. Warrior dps is far too high and will probably be nerfed further. Death Knight DPS is too close to pure dps, Paladins a bit low. Rogue dps is far too low for a pure class, while Priest and Druid dps is junk even for a hybrid (and will subsequently be buffed). Correcting for the stupidity of the Instructor fight by setting priest dps equal to the mean dps of the other class, however, places Priest dps at a similar level to Paladins (slightly low at 4,086 and -4.06%) and higher than Rogues.

For comparison's sake, the cumulative mean dps of the ranged classes (mage, hunter, priest, warlock) is 4,321 while the cumulative mean dps of the melee classes (rogues, warriors, death knights, paladins) is 4,259. Shamans and druids are excluded, as they cannot be determined if ranged or melee (although a brief glance at the pages indicate that enhance is outdamaging elemental, and balance outdamages feral routinely). The fights seem balanced in terms of ranged versus melee damage for most classes.

This is hardly a detailed statistical analysis, but 2am is a bit too late for me to open Stata.

TLDR SHORTCUT: Buff rogues and druids heavily, priests and paladins slightly. Nerf death knights slightly, warriors heavily.

Epiq fail on English.....epiq fail on data...You cannot compare human played characters data you damn ass...
Its like comparing human talents and counting.
Not possible...

[frester]

Epiq fail on English.....epiq fail on data...You cannot compare human played characters data you damn ass...
Its like comparing human talents and counting.
Not possible...

oh man... so what do you want compare? this is statistics so don't say nothing if you have no clue

this comparison looks perfectly good, and not everyone speaks english as native language Mr. epiq.

[Sandro, the Necromancer]

They really should have done this stuff last year when they released the new talents pre-WotLK.

[TheJ3ster]

Hopefully the reason there is a delay is they're tirelessly working on the Warlock changes, somehow I highly doubt that.

Warlocks are fine.

[Roar]

Were did the - Subtlety buffs go?


--
Else, everything seems nice ^^

[Flaw]

I also like how they've buffed combat so that you might actually not have to be mutilate if you really don't want to.

You don't have to be mutilate now, the difference between an equally geared/skilled mutilate and combat rogue is next to nothing.

[Mascotte]

I really dislike the new HfB. Sure, they fixed the 'issues' from it staying stacked but say we are doing a 5man or trash, we're no longer going to have HfB up since we dont really use rupture on trash. This is a little different in a 25man yes. Also, HfB goes further and further away from being viable in PvP which the old one kinda was, just not as viable :/

Need more assass buffs.

Then start by putting it into your trash rotation.
And tbh, trash is a horrible benchmark for dps anyway, since bossfights matter and not trash.
DPS classes should be balanced around bossfights, not trash which is zerged true regardless.

The rogue changes are a nice start, its not fully there yet but its a nice start.
And eventho rogue's overall performance might still need some tweaking that doesn't mean that assa should suddenly get more buffs because combat got some love, combat has been THE pve spec since MC and ever since Wotlk it has been sup par at best.

And Assa needing love in PvP, please tell me your joking

[Verth]

Omg.... please nerf the present OP classes (PVP always).
That is: Rogues (first of all)
Paladins (their burst, let them a bit OP they deserve it after all the hate)
Death knights (FotM is overplayed by many noobs that faceroll and it's realy bad after the
DK spree)
Mages (3 second rotation anyone?)

Priests, Warlocks, Shamans and maybe warriors a little bit need some love. Shamans and Warlocks might need love overdose.

[Mandible]

Even just looking at the two new things for disc priests I just looooooooooooove the changes.

[savchris]

Epic Fail. You suck as a rogue. Look up Rupture.

Hm... annoying comment tbh. I had just wake up when I read the upcoming changed and accidently I understand that the rogue must have a bleed effect in order to use HfB. My mistake. But plz next time be more civilised with your comment...

[bigamie]

and as stated by blizz, the rogue doesn't need to apply the bleed effect...bleeds from other classes (warrior,druids) are also sufficent.

[Deleted]

I really don't understand why disc priests need buffs at the moment. They are doing very well in PvP and if you want to do very well in PvE why spec disc in the first place when they don't have the tools for it and the changes won't give them that anyway? These changes will only make them even better in PvP but most priests will still spec holy in PvE if they want to heal. I'm really looking forward to penance self spamming disk priests in PvP now, seeing that they really don't have any ways of surviving damage as it is...oh wait.

As for SP changes they will need a lot more than that to be viable in PvP.

It's good that they are buffing combat rogues as not every one wants to play muti. As it is now muti is best for both PvE and PvP which is something that Blizz never seem to get right when it comes to rogues. One season combat is best for everything, then muti and then all the way back to subt and then we restart the cycle again. Is it so hard to have more than one viable tree at any given time?

[loftus]

people whine too much.

PvP i can sorta understand it...

but moaning that you get out dpsed in pve and calling for other classes to get nerfed?

hardly helps taking down a boss when half your team have been made weaker...

People should stop feeling hard done by and just play the game, there are many skilled players in my guild, and no-one tops the dps meters for more than 3 bosses in naxx per night, we leapfrog each other and overtake each other, and each classes dps is based heavily on what boss it is at the time.

if people stopped whining as much and actually just played the game, they may actually enjoy it.

All the changes look pretty nice imo, but all i really care about atm is dual spec, i can't wait for that baby to be released.