4.2 dot nerf?? :S

[Swivelhips]

My premade 346 Ilvl Warlock on ptr now out preforms my 373 Ilvl Shadow priest. On both single and multi-dotting. Oh and my priest prepotted and had a flask on.

[Tarin]

Chimaeron, magmaw (dotting the parasites is pointless), atramedes, conclave, al'akir (dotting sparks is a waste of mana). Theres plenty fights where we cant multi dot. And Insane mind sear damage? What? It's easily one of the weakest AoEs in the game still. Insanely overpowered? Yeah okay. You have no idea what you're talking about.

someone doesn't know how to refresh dots before transitions.

[Ryuujins]

I wish the Moonkin changes were as simple as yours >.<.

[TalonXephon]

I see this as a heavy PvP nerf. A majority of my time in PvP is spent running away from almost any melee that sees me in a group so the amount of time I get to hard cast a spell is very very small. SP are already very good at turreting when left alone. This change will just make our burst better when we are left alone, but with the nice "hey look at me standing here casting beam!" it won't last for long.
4.1 pushed us down, 4.2 continues by kicking us while we are down Yay!

[MoanaLisa]

Blizz doesn't want multi dotting? then restirct all dots to just one target and boost our single target capabilities.

In a roundabout way that's what this does. Dots aren't restricted to one target but you may not be inclined to multidot as much. And single-target capabilities were certainly boosted.

[Ineras]

You never heard that because Blizzard never made that post. They did post late wrath that the hybrid tax is real though and legitimate because pure DPS have no other way of getting into raids other than to do DPS at a high level. There'd be no point to bringing a pure DPS class over a hybrid otherwise (from a strictly hypothetical point of view).

I thought Blizzard did away with the hybrid tax with wrath because before wrath, hybrid classes had more utility/unique buffs than pures and hybrids could also perform their non-specced role relatively well in a fight if needed, but after wrath they equalized the buffs and made whatever spec the hybrid did not have on at the moment not viable for the fight.

Why there was a hybrid tax was because I could go into a 10-man raid and pretty much be considered a third healer just by healing everyone with Vampiric Embrace at the end of TBC. I don't see that happening now.

[angelx7x]

I don't know how Spriests managed to multidot in the first place, multidotting OOMs me very fast...

archangel and shadowfiend on CD help alot with this, so long as there aren't a large amount of targets, dual target multidotting isnt much more mana intensive than single target if you keep your shadowfiend and archangel on CD

[Deleted]

Our dots did most of the damage in PvP since you can't cast Mind Flay and Mind Blast 24/7, however this might be better vs teams with heavy dispels.

[angelx7x]

I almost wonder if it's due to the legendary proc. You wouldn't want the legendary to proc off of sw or a mindflay, but if it duplicated one of your dots WEEEEeeeeee. That's my conspiracy theory anyways, lower the top three damage spells and buff the lowest three. I don't like it. It shows they're not doing ANY math since each spell is a flat 12%, that's just picking a damned random number. They need to start putting explanations behind the numbers they choose to prove they have any competence in them at all. Also we're not the top on every fight, yah we're 3rd or 4th place at lowest but that's due to SA's and no one can see them anyways. How many times do you get 1st and everyone else sees you at 3rd. Okay, okay, the damage is still done and that's all that matters, so what no one believes you because you're the only one in your guild that knows your class. But if it didn't matter why do people CARE if one class is always on top. So... it does matter. So HAH.

*Grumbles* It's like they don't want us waiting on orbs for MB to chain super powered orbs, playing with the mastery procs was SO much fun. God I loved it... I loved the different levels of min maxing our spells... I don't want to mindlessly hit MB on cd, focus on one target because putting my dots up on boss #2 is a waste of DPS... *HUFFS* Meh, I know I just have to wait for the numbers to come out but it's not going to be a fun wait. x_x

duplicating one of your dots would be pointless unless it duplicated it onto another target

[Ineras]

duplicating one of your dots would be pointless unless it duplicated it onto another target

In theory they could make a copy of your dot on the same target. I'm not sure how they are going to go about the proc in practice though.

[Kiry]

I'm getting really sick of the changes to SP it seems every patch since cata release. What are we? mages? Locks? SP? Dot? Aoe? Burst? They keep changing the class. Yes, sear is very good damage now, but it took them forever just to fix the nerf they did to sear.

It's just frustrating. I feel like throwing up my hands and saying - ok Blizz let me know when you figure SP out, and maybe then I'll tell you if I'm still playing. I know that seems overly dramatic, but goodness!

[lightscreen]

[rant] ridiculous plain and simple. i agree with multidotting to be op to a certain degree.. but a 12% nerf to every dot?? comeon now.. especially DP since it can only be cast on 1 target as it is! Blizz has and always will favor faseroll arcanes mages and huntards. im going to train a monkey to play an arcane just to show blizz how broken these classes are. [/rant]

[tilatequila]

This will make spriests more bursty atleast..

[Shartadin]

Guess it's time to gear up my warlock.

[Magicochon]

Why there was a hybrid tax was because I could go into a 10-man raid and pretty much be considered a third healer just by healing everyone with Vampiric Embrace at the end of TBC. I don't see that happening now.

Indeed... I don't think a pure dps have less utility then I have now.
I can heal ? Well yeah I can help healer on some tough healing moment (OmnortonHM with magma aoe+ electron pulsing shadow)
But other pure class that can't heal can do other usefull things
A mage / lock / hunter can CC / snare ennemies
A rogue can stay in the twilight realm on twin's drake or cloak his debuff on conclave on wind platform.

So the famous hybrid taxes is quite useless now since a pure dps would be quite usefull on many fight, even when some of them are under hybrids.

[Achtalon]

This is ridiculous. I haven't been playing lately, but isn't Devouring Plague still limited to one target at a time? In other words, that particular spell has nothing to do with multi-dotting. Also, SW:P does relatively crap damage as is. Dotting is way more satisfying that casting boring nukes that spriests have. What a joke of a change. I'm glad I'm slowly quitting this game.

[Hesp]

Multi-dotting was a little op, but I'm more concerned about the lack of true design intent with the nerf rather than the idea behind it. A flat 12% reduction/buff to every ability? It just looks like a programmer lazily typed in a number rather than accurately determining how much/little each ability was dealing. It looks like we're going to get a minimal nerf single target, but obviously multi-dot situations will be hit pretty hard. I don't understand why dp needed to be nerfed however, considering it is a single target move. Doubt the changes will stick without being adjusted, but 12% is an awfully big coefficient for Blizz to just throw around like they are. Here's hoping my class is still above average and I keep my top legendary seat once 4.2 hits.

[MoanaLisa]

I'm getting really sick of the changes to SP it seems every patch since cata release. What are we? mages? Locks? SP? Dot? Aoe? Burst? They keep changing the class. Yes, sear is very good damage now, but it took them forever just to fix the nerf they did to sear.

It's just frustrating. I feel like throwing up my hands and saying - ok Blizz let me know when you figure SP out, and maybe then I'll tell you if I'm still playing. I know that seems overly dramatic, but goodness!

We're bursty.

Remember how everyone laughed and laughed when one of the higher-ups said that at Blizzcon?

I've an open mind about this one though.

What I have less of an open mind about is whether or not GC, as lead developer, has lost his way with the game. Tweaking classes is one thing. Changing them around frequently in profound ways is something else again. It's not just us either. There are a bunch of major changes coming down for a lot of classes.

So I wonder a bit about the overall game strategy and design at this point.

---------- Post added 2011-05-14 at 12:28 AM ----------

Multi-dotting was a little op, but I'm more concerned about the lack of true design intent with the nerf rather than the idea behind it. A flat 12% reduction/buff to every ability? It just looks like a programmer lazily typed in a number rather than accurately determining how much/little each ability was dealing. It looks like we're going to get a minimal nerf single target, but obviously multi-dot situations will be hit pretty hard. I don't understand why dp needed to be nerfed however, considering it is a single target move. Doubt the changes will stick without being adjusted, but 12% is an awfully big coefficient for Blizz to just throw around like they are. Here's hoping my class is still above average and I keep my top legendary seat once 4.2 hits.

I'm not going to go and find this but I seem to remember last fall there was a major reorganization of the warlock class on the Cataclysm beta with changes to the base damage of most of their damage spells....12% I seem to recall.

Make of that what you will. It's curious if my brain is remembering that right.

[StormyNights]

Looks like it's time to roll another class.

[Lucapa]

This philosophy largely evolved in Wrath of the Lich King and is the design we plan on carrying forward to Cataclysm. In vanilla WoW, every class typically had one role. In BC, we tried to promote other roles for some classes, but we still didn’t make everyone play by the same rules. Warriors, and I hate to pick on them, were intended to be the best tank while also deliver dps that we would now label as competitive with rogues. By contrast, druids, paladins, priests and shaman were intended to be competitive healers, but have dramatically lower dps than pures and warriors. Likewise, druids, paladins, priests and shaman brought many unique and powerful buffs that were intended to compensate for their low dps. We spread these buffs out to a much greater degree in Lich King, and plan on refining that implementation for Cataclysm.

This is the last post the devs made concerning hybrid tax.
If you look at those damage sites it is pretty clear as well: every pure has a prime spec at around 24 - 26k dps, while most hybrids are at around 22 - 23k dps, excluding Shadowpriests and Boomers. Boomers already got hit hard while SPs only got a few nerfs that didn't put us down far enough.

So to sum it up:
1. Devs have stated that they want hybrid tax as a design goal, nothing has been stated that they want to abandon that concept
2. All pures have one or two specs that are clearly ahead of almost any hybrid
3. the hybrids that were on the same level as pures are getting hard nerfs

Hybrid tax is still clearly in the game and it's intended to be roughly 8%.
If you are a Shadow Priest or a Boomkin look where Elemental Shamans are, that's our destination.

Don't like it? Neither do i, but i certainly don't play this game because of the balancing. I play it because of the work of the encounter design team despite the balancing.