Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17325, Resto Shaman and Windwalker Concerns, Blue Tweets

Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17325
Build 17325 will be deployed to the PTR realms soon.

Spell Changes
Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
Death Knight (Forums, Talent Calculator)
Blood
  • Soul Reaper now does 130% weapon damage, up from 100%. Damage and AP scaling increased by 20%.

Frost
  • Soul Reaper now does 130% weapon damage, up from 100%. Damage and AP scaling increased by 20%.

Unholy
  • Soul Reaper now does 130% weapon damage, up from 100%. Damage and AP scaling increased by 20%.

Paladin (Forums, Talent Calculator)
  • Light of the Ancient Kings now heals the target of your heals for 30% of the amount healed, rather than the target of your heals and allies within 10 yards of the target.

Holy
  • Guardian of Ancient Kings no longer heals nearby friendly targets. Now heals for an additional 30% of the amount healed, up from 10%.

Shaman (Forums, Talent Calculator)

Elemental & Restoration
  • Lava Burst base damage increased by 11%. SP scaling no longer listed.

Enhancement
  • Fire Nova damage and SP scaling increased by 82%.
  • Lava Lash now does 300% weapon damage, up from 260%.

Raid & Dungeon Abilities
  • Blade of the Hundred Steps Imbues all players of the tank role in the current quadrant of this warehouse with a boon. Attacks have a chance to call down a bolt of lightning, inflicting 354,000 413,000 Nature damage to enemies within 4 yards and stun them for 2 1.5 sec. This effect bypasses a creature's immunity to stuns and has a 15-second cooldown. Unlimited range. Instant.
  • Caustic Blood Injects the victim with poison, inflicting 0 Nature damage every second. This effect stacks up to 10 times. This effect fails to apply to tanks using their Active Mitigation abilities. Unlimited range. 3 sec cast. 10 yd range. 3 sec cast.
  • Corrosive Blood Inflicts 0 Nature damage initially, and then 0 Nature damage every 2 seconds. Limited to 1 target 2 targets. 300 yd range. 3 sec cast.
  • Embodied Doubt Inflicts 150,000 Shadow damage to all enemies within the realm of Y'Shaarj. Increases damage taken by Embodied Doubt by 2% 25%. Stacks. 1,000 yd range. 2 sec cast.
  • Falling Ash Summons a core of smouldering ash that will fall over 30 15 sec. Deals 999,999 Fire damage to enemies within 17 yards and 0 Fire damage to all enemies on impact. 3 sec cast.
  • Foul Stream Deals 200,000 Deals 300,000 Nature damage to all enemies on a line. 50 yd range. 3 sec cast.
  • Poison Bolt Inflicts 100,000 Inflicts 200,000 Nature damage. Limited to 1 target. 40 yd range. 2.5 sec cast.
  • Serrated Slash The sawblade slashes nearby targets, inflicting 50 250,000 Physical damage and knocking them back. Instant.
  • Serrated Slash The sawblade slashes nearby targets, inflicting 50 250,000 Physical damage and knocking them back. 300 yd range. Instant.
  • Shock Pulse A mighty seismic eruption knocks enemies back and inflicts 75,000 Nature damage. 4 sec cast.12 sec cooldown.
  • Sundering Blow Inflicts 0 Physical damage and sunders the target's armor, reducing armor by 10% for 60 30 sec. Generates 5 rage per stack of Sundering Blow on the target. Next melee. Melee range. 3 sec cast.
  • Toxic Storm Summons a powerful toxic storm that deals 200,000 300,000 Nature damage to enemies within 9 yards every 2 sec. and periodically creates Toxic Tornadoes. Instant.
  • Toxic Tornado Toxic winds deal 200,000 300,000 Nature damage to enemies within 5 yards every 1 sec. and knocks them up. Instant.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Battlefield: Barrens and Path of the Last Emperor
What about the quest leading up to the Battlefield barrens that offer the 502 boots?
Hi there. The quest, 'Path of the Last Emperor' will not be going away when patch 5.4 goes live. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Resto Shaman Concerns
So first off, yes, these changes are indeed being made as measures to help with the input lag problem. We obviously recognize that they're pretty big changes and we're going to have to do some additional tuning as a result (and that goes for everyone effected, not just Shaman).

Looking at some of the Shaman-specific concerns we've seen come up:

Earthliving Weapon: We recognize that the changes mean less opportunity for Earthliving to proc, but we're not sure it's overall a big deal. Given Earthliving's duration and the fact that the new, "smart" Healing Rain will still be hitting several targets (just not all at once), we still expect that most people standing in a Healing Rain will still wind up with Earthliving active. If there is a negative impact, we don't expect it to be a big one. It is something we'll keep an eye on, though.

Ancestral Vigor: This we consider to be a good deal more important, as keeping Vigor active on as many targets as possible is one of Resto's strengths (and feels good as part of their overall kit). Due to the ramp-up time, we feel that having Vigor fall off is a much bigger setback than Earthliving. We haven't made a final call on exactly what we'll do here yet; one idea we've discussed is extending Ancestral Vigor's duration, but that could easily change as we continue tuning.

Ancestral Guidance/Ascendance: We're not sure there's actually a problem here. Currently, past 6 targets, Healing Rain's actual healing output is reduced per player it affects. The end result is that roughly the same amount of raw healing is going out if it only hits 6 players as it would if it were hitting 25. In fact, in many cases, it could actually be more. If even one of those 25 players were already at full (say they've got a bunch of absorbs on them, or used something like Divine Shield or Dark Bargain), that amount that previously would have just been overhealing will instead be allocated to someone else that actually needs it.

Again, we recognize that these changes are going to require some extra tuning, so we'll be keeping a close eye on how things shake out in continued testing. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Patch 5.4 Windwalker Feedback
We’re definitely getting very, very different results from you guys in our own testing. For clarity, I’m not just talking about simulations – we’re getting much higher performance, in tier 16 gear, in actual playtesting on the 5.4 PTR client. We’ve even gone so far as to make duplicates of several of your characters just to be certain we’re testing under the same exact conditions.

This leads us to believe one of two things:

  • There’s some sort of bug we haven’t caught yet that’s causing a massive DPS increase somewhere unexpected (which is possible, and we’re investigating, but haven’t found anything to suggest that’s the case), or
  • We’re doing something that the community isn’t, which could possibly be due to inaccurate simulations (which in turn lead to incomplete testing of alternative builds or rotations)
One trend in particular that we’ve noticed is that PTR Windwalkers are placing far more emphasis on Haste than we are. There’s a few minor rotational and talent differences as well when we compare our parses to yours (most of which come from the lower haste), but the biggest difference by far seems to be in how we’re prioritizing secondary stats.

Again, these are results we’re able to replicate in the same test environment you guys have, using the same gear, with the same buffs/debuffs and so forth.

We're not comparing 5.4 Windwalker to 5.3 Windwalker, we're comparing 5.4 Windwalker to 5.4 everyone else. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Misc
The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on. (Source)
But it's not the players' job to make a good game. It's the devs' job. So not sure you can blame even HC players. (Source)

The screenshot with four class specs and a tinker class is fake. We can't confirm/deny every rumor but this one is just a clever fake. (Source)
Thanks for clarifying that. Is the Tinker a class that you feel would fit into WoW? I'd love to see it.
Not sure. Might be a little too whimsical for WoW. Would depend on the treatment. (Source)

any comments on the controversy behind alleged trademarking of The Dark Below?
Players seem very confident in their ability to CONFIRMED! these days. (Half Life 3 - CONFIRMED!) (Source)

Please, Greg... tell me we'll get to see the real scope of Azjol-Nerub someday.... soon™?
I am personally a huge Azjol-Nerub nerd, but I can't ram through my pet projects single handedly. Maybe someday. (Source)

Dear WoW community, the pitchfork and torches strategy has never been an effective one for fomenting class change. (Source)
I've been doing this long enough (15 years!) to know that players love the revolution narrative: (Source)
The downtrodden unite into a resistance movement that rises up against The Man and gets much needed change for their neglected characters. (Source)
It's a charming story and probably reassuring when the developers in truth have almost all the decision making power. (Source)
how about unsubbing? Is that effective?
Out of protest? I don't think so. Too hard for that message to get through. (Source)

I know you like good args., but it's hard to know what counts. You do ignore some good args. for reasons you can't say in pub.
Sure. And sometimes we agree with an argument and still won't make a change for other reasons. (Source)
We aren't going to answer "What can I do to make an argument so good that you will 100% make a change?" (Source)
And also part of what you're seeing is just the impossibility for us to publicly address every argument or even every popular one. (Source)

Any chance you'll ever release a copy of your internal sim (if you have it) to give us a tool to bypass those problems?
No. Everyone would invest too much energy trying to prove our tool wrong. It's how these things go. (Source)

Took a look at your twitter for the first time ever. I do not envy you. People are rough. Curious, do you raid on a raid team?
Yes. I'm on a heroic 25 team. I have been raiding just about since I dinged 60. (Source)
Do your guildies know who you are? How do you respond to their criticism?
Many know. I let them bitch away. It's not fair not to be able to just because I joined them. (Source)
I would bet he plays a lock.Fire mages nerfed 60% afflic/destro buffed. #numbersshowlockswerealreadyahead
.Do you guys realize I would actually get fired if I just kept buffing my characters all the time? (Source)
I think creators should not play thier own game , and yes we do believe you favor buffs of the toons you play .I
I think I'd be pretty out of touch if I didn't play my own game. How would I know what to fix? Who yells the loudest? (Source)

I hear you're on a 25H team. Roughly how much of your day/week is WoW related? work wise and personal play time.
I play WoW entirely too much when I'm not working, but I feel like I need to in order to stay in touch. (Source)

Ola, Mr. Street. just a thought; do you JUST work on WoW? if so, anything else at Blizzard you'd like a crack at?
I spend 90% of my time on WoW. I help out on other games, usually feedback or brainstorming, when those teams ask. (Source)
I worked on RTS games for years so I have a soft spot for SC and I have always been a Diablo fan. (Source)
This article was originally published in forum thread: Patch 5.4 PTR - Build 17325, Shaman and Windwalker Concerns, Blue Tweets started by chaud View original post
Published on 2013-08-22 10:06 PM
51 Comments
Comments 51 Comments
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Susej View Post
    I feel like they're trying to make all execute spells even MORE deadly.

    Dispatch buffed, Soul Reaper. Anything els?
    Certain classes are having trouble finishing off nearly dead players on PTR?

    PVP balance is a pain, not only do you have to balance classes, but you also have to make sure burst isn´t too high, healing is meaningful yet not so strong that matches last forever, but also, you have to make sure a nearly dead player can be finished off..
  1. nightfalls's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Do you think I care if you think I'm small? Calling someone who lies a liar doesn't make me small. I don't believe him, deal with it. It's PR, if he actually played he would know more about the game and wouldn't make ignorant statements all the time like not knowing what classes have blanket silences. The fact that he said he's in a heroic 25m is a joke. There is no way someone as busy as him has the time to progress heroics. If you want to believe everything that is spoon fed to you then gratz on being "big".

    Now queue the I work 90 hours a week and I'm 13/13 posts.
    You can be 13/13H by now doing 8 hours a week or something. Also "heroic 25m" doesn't even equate to that, he could be an 11/13 or something guild, that's easily doable on an 8 hour raid week schedule. There are tons of heroic 25m guilds at various progress level and time/commitment levels. Yes the numbers have thinned in MOP due to 10m and other issues, but they still exist.
  1. akris15's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Do you think I care if you think I'm small? Calling someone who lies a liar doesn't make me small. I don't believe him, deal with it. It's PR, if he actually played he would know more about the game and wouldn't make ignorant statements all the time like not knowing what classes have blanket silences. The fact that he said he's in a heroic 25m is a joke. There is no way someone as busy as him has the time to progress heroics. If you want to believe everything that is spoon fed to you then gratz on being "big".

    Now queue the I work 90 hours a week and I'm 13/13 posts.
    Let me guess to you only people who live on hotpockets in their mother's basement are the only ones who do heroic raiding? If anything I noticed people who tend to do Heroic content actually are 20-30 year old young professionals that range from accountants to auditors to lawyers in training to young physicians to business manager (you get my point). I know personally I average about 45 hours a week (not including time I have to go into work at 3 AM because something bad happens) and I have more than enough time to raid 12 hours a week and currently I am 11/13 HM (should be 13/13 HM by this point but our guild has been on Hiatus for the past 10 weeks due to real life issues with my guild members). I am a bit surprised you think that only "no lifers" have the time to do heroic content. Yet I guess some people just have better time management skills than others...
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Do you think I care if you think I'm small? Calling someone who lies a liar doesn't make me small. I don't believe him, deal with it. It's PR, if he actually played he would know more about the game and wouldn't make ignorant statements all the time like not knowing what classes have blanket silences. The fact that he said he's in a heroic 25m is a joke. There is no way someone as busy as him has the time to progress heroics. If you want to believe everything that is spoon fed to you then gratz on being "big".

    Now queue the I work 90 hours a week and I'm 13/13 posts.

    link the quote where he messed up about blanket silences. But that still doesn´t mean he doesn´t play. If he messed up something after working 50hrs per week on the game, playing the game for a few hours at night isn´t going to teach him that. I know he played a warrior tank in Vanilla and said he was playing mostly unholy DK this expansion.. but not sure to what extent that is his new main or whatever.

    In any event, the guy creates the rotations and is in very early on the boss fight mechanisms and devotes his entire workday to the game... Not to mention probably has the highest end computer possible to play on.. But he was a raider in vanilla, my guess is he isn´t doing pet battles or summoning his cooking student every day either.

    And I agree, calling someone a liar based on nothing is pretty small.
  1. jazzyy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shudder View Post
    Do you think I care if you think I'm small? Calling someone who lies a liar doesn't make me small. I don't believe him, deal with it. It's PR, if he actually played he would know more about the game and wouldn't make ignorant statements all the time like not knowing what classes have blanket silences. The fact that he said he's in a heroic 25m is a joke. There is no way someone as busy as him has the time to progress heroics. If you want to believe everything that is spoon fed to you then gratz on being "big".

    Now queue the I work 90 hours a week and I'm 13/13 posts.
    i think he called you small because youre jumping down someones throat over something so small. why would gc give you his armory, so people can roll onto his realm and constantly spam him with shit like WHY IS MY CLASS NOT BALANCED???? honestly we don't even know how many hours he works or how many hours he raids.

    and on the subject of knowing classes i think you forget greg is one guy and there are what, 34 specs? there are people who have played one class/spec for years on end and i doubt they know every single tiny thing about that spec. and this guy has to balance all 34 of them at the same time with some other people.

    i think people give gc more credit than he's worth. he's not a one man army and he can't balance every spec around both pve and pvp to make your favorite class run with the pack
  1. nightfalls's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by jazzyy View Post
    i think people give gc more credit than he's worth. he's not a one man army and he can't balance every spec around both pve and pvp to make your favorite class run with the pack
    And as he mentioned, he just happens to be the Lead Designer which makes him take the brunt of the fallout. But the actual design is done by a team of many people.
  1. Beefkow's Avatar
    Ummm.... are unholy dk's soul reapers going to hit like a truck? with that 25% UM and soul reaper buff, i mean WOW.
  1. mcbubble's Avatar
    GoAK as a 5 minute H Paly CD is a complete joke.
  1. MORGATH99's Avatar
    wheres those fury buff i heard some time ago blizz ?
  1. Shudder's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by voidspark View Post
    You can be 13/13H by now doing 8 hours a week or something. Also "heroic 25m" doesn't even equate to that, he could be an 11/13 or something guild, that's easily doable on an 8 hour raid week schedule. There are tons of heroic 25m guilds at various progress level and time/commitment levels. Yes the numbers have thinned in MOP due to 10m and other issues, but they still exist.
    He doesn't just work 8 hours a day like I said. Also he constantly travels all over the world.
  1. jazzyy's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by voidspark View Post
    And as he mentioned, he just happens to be the Lead Designer which makes him take the brunt of the fallout. But the actual design is done by a team of many people.
    don't get me wrong though gc can be incompetent at times but in reality this is all part of the design philosophy of mmos in general and wow is not the first mmo to have a lead developer sometimes believe he is right when he could be wrong.

    i think gc does a fine job but yes there are lowball moments where even i think "wow what."
  1. Wheetos's Avatar
    i hope they roll out some other class changes - this dk stuff is starting to look pretty scary in pvp...
  1. Loreish's Avatar
    I feel bad for Greg, too many trolls and nerdrage out there.
  1. Garrikk's Avatar
    How can anyone not like GC. You can tell he loves the game he works on and makes decisions that are for the bettering of the game.
  1. mmocef71e99c15's Avatar
    Blizz announce Reaper of Souls xpac for Diablo.
    Blizz buffs Soul Reaper for Death Knights.

    COINCIDENCE!!!???
    I think not!

    /TINFOIL
  1. Merooz99's Avatar
    Seems like Dks will be op in pvp.
  1. AnTwan's Avatar
    30% reduction to healing and SP scaling? So much for my resto shaman being buffed in 5.4 That's a pretty drastic pull back. I understand they were having lag issues due to healing but was it really because healing was too efficient? And why just Shaman and pallies? What about Resto Druid or Holy Priest who also have AE healing? I wish I understood more about why the change was needed but right now it feels like cutting these abilities so they don't have to bother fixing the problem.
  1. ProfessorTjc's Avatar
    Yay Elemental Shammy buffs... FINALLY!!!

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by bregtann View Post
    Blizz announce Reaper of Souls xpac for Diablo.
    Blizz buffs Soul Reaper for Death Knights.

    COINCIDENCE!!!???
    I think not!

    /TINFOIL
    #Illuminati
  1. Rioo's Avatar
    Looks like he plays DK with all of these buffs lol.
  1. mmoc122c1567f0's Avatar
    "One trend in particular that we’ve noticed is that PTR Windwalkers are placing far more emphasis on Haste than we are. There’s a few minor rotational and talent differences as well when we compare our parses to yours (most of which come from the lower haste)". i srsly doubt that a few k haste is a "massive" dps difference
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