Thread: 3.3 balance adjustments, Rotface (10) Nerf, Blue posts

Update Recent In-Game Fixes - 01/07

Originally Posted by Bornakk (Blue Tracker)

Listed below are recent fixes we have applied to the game. Keep in mind that some of these changes may not be active until after the realm has been restarted.

To review previous in-game fixes, please visit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...23843880&sid=1

01/07/10

• Rotface’s hit points have been reduced in the 10 person encounter.
• Stealthed rogues should no longer trigger traps in Ice Crown Citadel from long range.
• The base damage bonus from Hunger for Blood has been reduced from 10% to 5%.
• The bonus damage rogues gain from attack power for poisons has been decreased. This applies to Instant Poison, Deadly Poison, and Wound Poison.

Upcoming 3.3 balance adjustments

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler (Blue Tracker)

As many of you have suspected, we think rogue damage is too high. We will be making hotfixes to lower the maximum damage output of Assassination and Combat rogues. The Combat nerf will be slight. Both specs should still do just fine on damage meters (assuming skill, gear etc.) but shouldn't be beating out other specs to such a large degree.

Other things on our radar that you might see soon -- none of these are promises and we have no specific changes to announce yet:

• Warlock damage in PvE is a little low.
• Protection warriors have too much utility and damage for PvP. (We don't want to hurt their tanking in PvE of course.)
• We are considering adjusting (not replacing) the Elemental 4 piece Tier 10 set bonus.
• We'll continue to refine and look at the Icecrown weapon procs.
• Other stuff (yes, we've heard your concerns), but these are the big things we are focusing on at this time.

Some of these changes, should we decide to pursue them, can be handled via hotfix and others will be made in an upcoming patch.

We usually don't make such general announcements before we're ready to share the specifics, so we'll see how this works out.

Rotface 10-man Health Reduced by 15%

Originally Posted by Valnoth (Blue Tracker)

The changes made to Rotface were an effort to fix a bug that fell through the cracks in development and testing. The previous iteration of Rotface in 10 player difficulty used (and still uses) the same timer as the 25 player difficulty version when dispersing its Mutated Infection ability.

What this means, plainly, is that a disproportionate number of people were being put out of the fight near the 30% mark in 10 player (by a large percentage) versus 25 player, making the entire fight much more difficult than intended.

Obviously if you severely outgeared the fight, none of this mattered to you. The HP change will have no effect on your 10 player clears. You will, in fact, still kill Rotface.

The 25 player version of Rotface remains unchanged.

Blue posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Need before Greed in low level dungeons
There seems to be some confusion on how the looting system works so I’ll explain it a bit.

The item you mentioned is item level 56. The new Need Before Greed looting system is the default option when using the Dungeon Finder to make a group on items that are above item level 70, which is basically Outland gear beginning in The Ramparts. Items that are below this number go by the standard Group Loot system.

We felt this starting point of item level 70 was a better way to go since items can be a little more disorganized at the lower levels and several classes change their armor type along the way. We put in the satchel of helpful goods to balance this out a bit and support players leveling their way up through dungeons. (Source)

Tank itemization between tiers
Expertise and hit are both capable stats. As the item budget on gear grows it just means you’re going to be dealing with them in larger and larger chunks, which in turn might make it harder to shift around gear, gems or enchants correctly to hit your desired amounts.

It is definitely a design goal though to make something like Tier 10 have different stats than Tier 9 or otherwise all you’d get out of new gear is a few more stat points and everything would feel really homogenized. (Source)

Bryntroll too powerful? (Bryntroll, the Bone Arbiter)
We have found a bug with Bryntroll where it procs too often for Retribution paladins or Unholy DKs. For example both portions of Scourge Strike could cause a proc, which is unintended.

Bryntroll seems to account for about ~3-4% of dps for a typical Icecrown Fury warrior. That's more of where it should be for other melee. (Source)

Hunter (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Zod's Repeating Longbow Durability Issues (Zod's Repeating Longbow)
Zod’s works similarly to the talent Wild Quiver. Since Wild Quiver causes extra durability through additional weapon use, Zod’s does too. We will keep an eye on it but don't have any current plans to change anything unless there is a but resulting in additional durability damage. (Source)

Rogue (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Rogue damage too high in raid?
I think some of the confusion from yesterday came from two slightly different topics being mushed together in some of these discussions.

1) Are certain fights unfair to casters?

Yes, there are definitely fights that benefit X over Y. By design. This is most of what I was trying to explain yesterday. Boss encounters are variable and that's intentional. There are very few Patchwerk-like encounters and that will continue to be the case. We're not going to promise that the first fight in every raid is the mage fight and then the next one is the rogue fight and so on. That gets predictable and boring quickly. If you have an important role on a fight (even if that role is staying alive) which causes you to do less dps, then you should still throw yourself fully into doing your job as good as you can.

2) Is rogue damage too high?

Quite possibly, and we might lower it accordingly. That's not the same thing as melee doing well on fights whose mechanics allow melee to do really well. That's not the same as "Icecrown being unfair to casters" because casters can't just stand in one place and nuke on every, or even very many, fights.

Hopefully that explains things a little better.

If you see something you feel is out of whack, then feel free to bring it up on the forums. If it's been brought up already, then chances are we already know about it and are considering whether to take any action. If we haven't announced any changes yet, then that might mean we don't think changes are necessary or it might mean we haven't decided what to do yet. Constantly bringing up the same issue over and over isn't really going to sway us more than bringing it up once. It might annoy other players though. (Source)

Shaman (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Lack of raiding spots for Elemental shamans?

I think a lot of players would roll their eyes at a shaman saying their buffs and utility are garbage. Regardless, you shouldn't get brought for your buffs and utility anyway. That whole system is really there for three reasons:

1) You feel more powerful in a group because of all the synergy.
2) You have motivation to try and have a variety of classes / specs in your group.
3) The various classes and specs feel different, which adds depth and interest to the game.

It's clear some players out there desperately want

4) The unique buff that insures everyone desperately wants them in their raid.

We just don't like that design at all. That was more or less the design in BC and it had a ton of problems. At a high level, there are 30 specs in the game, so you couldn't even fit all of their "you must bring me" buffs in a 25 player raid, let alone a 10 player raid.

There are plenty of Elemental shaman raiding, even in some of the best guilds of the world (and that is not true of every spec in the game). Those guys must think more highly of Ele than your friends do.

P.S. I'm pretty tolerant of players who are trying to post in their second or third language. I wish other posters were as well. For posters who speak English as a first language and just don't have good spelling and grammar skills, well, hopefully your point will still get through. (Source)

Warrior (Forums / Talent Calculator)
Passive talents in Cataclysm - Threat reduction
Talents that lower threat are probably one of the things we will do away with in Cataclysm. In that environment, we can make sure that Battle stance and Berserker stance alone have suitable threat reduction and leave it at that.

Of course, the other side is that threat is supposed to be something you worry about. It’s part of the game. If you were supposed to always go all out and not worry about it ever, then we could just remove threat as a whole. (Source)

New shout for warriors?
We still feel that both Battle Shout and Commanding Shout continue to be very useful. If we decided that there was a group buff that needed to be added, we would consider giving it to warriors, but we do have some ideas stirring to make both Battle Shout and Commanding Shout better in Cataclysm. (Source)

Ugh rogue nerf. Mutilate was pretty OP, but combat honestly wasn't.

Awesome changes, though i don't understand why they feel that combat damage is too high. And finally the most annoying spec in pvp is getting nerfs, damn prot warrs.

Originally Posted by Jaese

They'll try not to hurt prot warrior PvE BUT THEY FUCKING WILL.

Prolly true and that will be so sad..... can't they just add something that says "can't be used in arena" or something? or am i thinking crazy things now?

Originally Posted by hurrrr

so are Balance Druids still getting fucked over?
looks like it.

Yea, give us some love -.-
WE cant hold a candle to a warlock...

Rogues nerf? Oh no :'(. There was too much QQ by other classes again...

Thank GOD they're finally nerfing the rogue billcrap.. Mutilate was disgustingly OP, AND combat even though not so bad.

Yes, yes, yes, combat was also OP. Our combat rogue is doing 10k+ dps, next highest melee is about 8k. Just spec the right way and mash your one of the easiest rotations. But guess some people fail even at that if they dont see how combat is OP as well.

Also it's funny to watch 70% of combat rogues damage coming from autoattack only(white and poison proc which procs off autoattack). Afk class topping the meters ftw? Molten core flashback lolol

Originally Posted by Crow88

Rogues nerf? Oh no :'(. There was too much QQ by other classes again...

Maybe because it was unbalanced...

Rogues have 3 specs that all do 1 thing...dps. let them do what they were made to do, they don't have much unique utility anymore

"QQ and blizz will redue"

nerf combat rogue dmg? lol just because some rogues are good players and get hest, tott with speed pots doesnt mean the dps is to strong...

and i agree with everyone else about mut, that needs the nerf not combat.

Originally Posted by Stratorogue

Combat rogues didn't need to be nerfed. Mutilate I agree with, the poison changes helped mutilate way too much. Combat DPS is still a little low.

you are a rogue, of course you think combat is a little low......