Veng for Shadowlands thoughts?

[Skayth]

Fears came trough, altho they did not nerf us as much as I assumed. Its not a dead spec, just tuned down a bit. 6 sec meta every 1m is still a good thing. Fiery brand build makes us still really good in m+. Yes, we can go to spirit bomb spec and just blast that and hope to be OP but dealing damage is not supposed to be tanks priority. Yes we should deal as much dmg as we can but making us to forget everything and spam SB does not feel as a good gameplay to me as a tank so I dont really mind these nerfs altho they could have just nerfed SB directly instead of this meddeling with souls. Will see how it plays out, less fotm runners now.

Nope, pretty much dead last now in M+. We took a 25% healing reduction, ontop of active mitigation being spread further out. SC (with 2 souls) does less healing with SC (1 soul) last patch. ts thanks to the people exploiting the hell outta versatility. So rather than fixing the problem with vers, they nerfed us to dead last.

They even nerfed Feast of Souls... A talent NOONE takes, thats how bad it was.

[Vengeto]

Nope, pretty much dead last now in M+. We took a 25% healing reduction, ontop of active mitigation being spread further out. SC (with 2 souls) does less healing with SC (1 soul) last patch. ts thanks to the people exploiting the hell outta versatility. So rather than fixing the problem with vers, they nerfed us to dead last.

They even nerfed Feast of Souls... A talent NOONE takes, thats how bad it was.

We can only hope they do a second round of tuning after normalising gear.... i still cant for the life of me figure out how they did tuning based on scaled gear........

Do we know if the leggo shoulders were actually nerfed or just reworded yet ?

Id like to also add that no one doing high keys was even using spirit bomb, as it was trash compared to the current MEME build. Which really isnt a suprise as the devs intended to kill it.

If you think spirit bomb is boring then lol, beta build literally just spams fracture and soul cleave outside of our usual infernal/sigil/glaive spam and fel for meta procs.

[Vakna]

Sweet, exactly the kind of answer I was looking for. I was afraid someone would see my question as a "which is most OP tank?" Or something like that.

Much appreciated it

The problem is that fun is extremely subjective. That guy is giving you an answer based on his own feelings, yours might be completely different. My favourite tank in terms of fun to play is BDK for example which is entirely counter to his answer, and you have no reason to believe him over me or vice versa. Asking which tank is most fun to play is more of a useless question than asking which tank is best, you just gotta feel it out for yourself.

[Shiza]

Its kinda funny in a way how they immediately nerf Veng because it was viable for once while keeping Monk even nerfs ridiculously overpowered basically since it was released.

[Subrias]

Id like to also add that no one doing high keys was even using spirit bomb, as it was trash compared to the current MEME build. Which really isnt a suprise as the devs intended to kill it.

If you think spirit bomb is boring then lol, beta build literally just spams fracture and soul cleave outside of our usual infernal/sigil/glaive spam and fel for meta procs.

Wait, Really? every video and whatnot i watch on DH said they were forced into spirit bomb both because it outheals and out damages soul cleave AND because it has no target cap.

Side note, am i really the only person who has a problem with fracture? lol. i have to be spamming a button or i feel like im not doing anything. Fracture without high haste made the spec feel slow and super clunky to me ever since they changed it to a generator.

[Orloth]

To be clear: Spirit Bomb Never outhealed Soul Cleave... rotationally speaking. If you're generating and consuming the souls anyway, then the HPS from a Soul Cleave rotation, beat the HPS of a Spirit Bomb rotation, until something like ten targets. This is speaking of BFA, mind. What Spirit Bomb allowed you to do defensively was better control when you were consuming your souls to better line up with when you were taking damage, thus making the % of damage taken heals much stronger in the hands of a skilled player. But forced to? No, not at all.

What they've done in Shadowlands is move Spirit Bomb so it competes against some *actually decent* (if boring as hell) defensive options. And while you can make a case as to why Defensive and Offensive talents shouldn't compete on the same tier... they do for all tanks, so... that's the world we live in. You'll pick Infernal Armor until you outgear or outskill the content and can afford to go the riskier more dps Spirit Bomb build. (Unless the Fiery Brand Build actually fits together, I haven't seen the math on that, but I expect it'd only be viable against raid bosses.)

The Problem is more that Spirit Bomb is a really cool rotation defining spell, and Soul Cleave just doesn't deliver in its place. Soul Cleave would need to be a far more awesome button to press to compete.

And.... What is good to play is extremely subjective. I like Fracture for exactly the opposite reason. I don't want to feel like I need to fill every GCD. I like slower more considered rotations, feels like I'm setting up for a big payoff rather than just pounding the keyboard. Shear may fill every GCD, but there's not a whole lot of thought or cool payoff to 5 Shears > Spirit Bomb or 3 Shears > Soul Cleave. I exaggerate, of course, but to each their own.

[Tech614]

Wait, Really? every video and whatnot i watch on DH said they were forced into spirit bomb both because it outheals and out damages soul cleave AND because it has no target cap.

Side note, am i really the only person who has a problem with fracture? lol. i have to be spamming a button or i feel like im not doing anything. Fracture without high haste made the spec feel slow and super clunky to me ever since they changed it to a generator.

Spec plays at the exact same speed with either Shear or Fracture. If you care about filling every CD you have throw glaive when there is nothing else to press, and somehow even throw glaive feels better to press then Shear does.

[Tinary]

(Unless the Fiery Brand Build actually fits together, I haven't seen the math on that, but I expect it'd only be viable against raid bosses.)

The Problem is more that Spirit Bomb is a really cool rotation defining spell, and Soul Cleave just doesn't deliver in its place. Soul Cleave would need to be a far more awesome button to press to compete.

I found it better in m+ trash than on a ST. From what I've seen from forums and from streamers and peeps ingame, they all expect a single button to be OP but dont count the interactions with others. For example fiery brand build. The math is bad right, its what, 12,5 seconds on single target? But even a 3 seconds 40% dmg reduction on few mobs is better than none. Im all for "kill targets fast so they dont kill you" mentality but at certain point, living as a tank is better than dying with huge dps. For now you have a pretty decent def "rota" in dungeons for packs, 3m cd meta for really dangerous areas, 1m cd meta for healing break, 1m cd spreading fiery brand for constant dmg redu, Demon spikes to fill the "oh shit" areas. Add there 6 sec stunlock, 6 sec silence and grip from chains and trash management seems golden. While I do agree that we somewhat lack a proper def toolkit, peeps running into a pack: Brand from afar->Fracture->Fracture->Fel deva->meta (while spamming DS) and then complaining to healer that they are dying cause at the end of the pack they have nothing, is not our toolkit problem. Its peeps not playing with the tools they have. Futhermore I dont understand the peeps problem with soul cleave, its a rotational healing spell, I compare it with warriors shield block or druids frenzy regen. You build resource for it and then spend it, nothing to it. Doesnt need to be flashy. The problem seems to be that we do not have alot of buttons as a spec to press, everything else feels more of a cooldown than a rota spell but adding more spells could mean that we can not find a spots to use sigils etc. Could be solved by lowering sigils cds while lowering duration or adding a fury spender that does not heal and does not consume orbs (maul for druids style where you spend resource cause you dont need it) or add a ST build for raids into talents but thats more harder to do.

Again this is from a PoV from a person who does dungeons, I dont raid anymore due lack of time. Also I dont mind them adding more spells or making us tankier but being OP or the "must have" choice for every dungeons doesnt seem appealing to me.

[zymos]

Meanwhile, chinese VDH doing +22 keys np. On Beta. (yes post nerf)

[Aurosh]

From what i heard veng is still highest tank dps. He still seems kind of taking more damage, but high tank dps is really good for m+. The question will be if survivability will be an issue.

For raids tank dps doesnt really matter so brewmaster seems to be perfect for raids again.

So m+ looks fine and strong, in raids veng might be ignored in highend guilds.

[Orloth]

I found it better in m+ trash than on a ST. From what I've seen from forums and from streamers and peeps ingame, they all expect a single button to be OP but dont count the interactions with others. For example fiery brand build. The math is bad right, its what, 12,5 seconds on single target? But even a 3 seconds 40% dmg reduction on few mobs is better than none. Im all for "kill targets fast so they dont kill you" mentality but at certain point, living as a tank is better than dying with huge dps. For now you have a pretty decent def "rota" in dungeons for packs, 3m cd meta for really dangerous areas, 1m cd meta for healing break, 1m cd spreading fiery brand for constant dmg redu, Demon spikes to fill the "oh shit" areas. Add there 6 sec stunlock, 6 sec silence and grip from chains and trash management seems golden. While I do agree that we somewhat lack a proper def toolkit, peeps running into a pack: Brand from afar->Fracture->Fracture->Fel deva->meta (while spamming DS) and then complaining to healer that they are dying cause at the end of the pack they have nothing, is not our toolkit problem. Its peeps not playing with the tools they have. Futhermore I dont understand the peeps problem with soul cleave, its a rotational healing spell, I compare it with warriors shield block or druids frenzy regen. You build resource for it and then spend it, nothing to it. Doesnt need to be flashy. The problem seems to be that we do not have alot of buttons as a spec to press, everything else feels more of a cooldown than a rota spell but adding more spells could mean that we can not find a spots to use sigils etc. Could be solved by lowering sigils cds while lowering duration or adding a fury spender that does not heal and does not consume orbs (maul for druids style where you spend resource cause you dont need it) or add a ST build for raids into talents but thats more harder to do.

Again this is from a PoV from a person who does dungeons, I dont raid anymore due lack of time. Also I dont mind them adding more spells or making us tankier but being OP or the "must have" choice for every dungeons doesnt seem appealing to me.

Ok, there's a lot here to respond to and you don't seem to use formatting to make it followable so apologies if I miss stuff.

The Fiery Brand Build is both of those talents (increased Duration, and Spreading) as well as the shorter cooldown conduit and the reduce cooldown Legendary. It puts Fiery Brand of into the range of something you'll be casting every 30-40 seconds (depending on final rotation and conduit levels available, again, haven't seen the math.) To my mind at least, that (+ the changes made to Fel Devestation) gives us a pretty decent toolkit for Raid Tanking.

I agree that people don't use their skills well. Side issue and not the point.

You're misunderstanding me on Soul Cleave entirely. The point is exactly that Soul Cleave is a rotational healing spell. But Spirit Bomb feels more like a finisher. It's not so much it's flashiness so much as it's weight. Spirit Bomb consumes all souls, Soul Cleave only consumes two, for the same cost. You can't spam Spirit Bomb, it would do nothing without Souls, but Soul Cleave is very spamable and still does something without the souls. Hell, sometimes you want to spam it. Spirit Bomb feels weighty when you press it, and there are consequences to pressing it at the wrong time. Soul Cleave doesn't. And it comes down to sometime in the BFA Beta when Blizz decided to make Soul Cleave only consume two souls.

Our entire resource system feels very mismatched because of stuff like this. Not that it isn't playable, just that it doesn't seem to fit elegantly together a lot of the time.

[Tinary]

My posts are not formatted cause im mostly writing from phone. I understand it sometimes makes it hard to read and understand.
Anyway from what i understand you want soul cleave to feel more epic cause it consumes souls like spirit bomb which feels good to press. Its like comparing warriors dragons roar or ravager to shield block. They are different category spells.

Secondly how people use their skills and whatnot is very important at the moment cause more people use them wrong, more reports. The soul cleave cap is a good example, people complained alot that soul cleave used their souls and they couldnt press spirit bomb. Mostly skill question but here we are with the blizzard "listening" to players.

Thirdly i just pointed out that fiery brand build feels great in m+ dungeons and its not only viable in raids as you assumed. I did not mean to argue or flame, just pointed out how i felt bout changes.

[dcc626]

Its kinda funny in a way how they immediately nerf Veng because it was viable for once while keeping Monk even nerfs ridiculously overpowered basically since it was released.

yeah, not like monk got any nerfs lately. oh wait, brew had exactly 2 changes since alpha, and both were giant nerfs.

- - - Updated - - -

From what i heard veng is still highest tank dps. He still seems kind of taking more damage, but high tank dps is really good for m+. The question will be if survivability will be an issue.

For raids tank dps doesnt really matter so brewmaster seems to be perfect for raids again.

So m+ looks fine and strong, in raids veng might be ignored in highend guilds.

prot pally still does more. and it doesnt matter really, they have done no actual tank damage balancing beyond legendaries and conduits. things arent going live as they are. but hey, you can do high keys on the beta! (without affixes and other things that wont happen on live) ...

[iperson]

Meanwhile, chinese VDH doing +22 keys np. On Beta. (yes post nerf)

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-charac...world/all/tank

Druids are top tier in BFA...

[Subrias]

Spec plays at the exact same speed with either Shear or Fracture. If you care about filling every CD you have throw glaive when there is nothing else to press, and somehow even throw glaive feels better to press then Shear does.

Interesting, yeah I guess that makes sense and it is a good argument. To each their own. However, as a player who has played since vanilla as a rogue, hunter, and prot paladin until legion where I switched to DH, I always had a spam button as 2 of the 3. Rogue always had spamable combo generators, hunter you would just spam steady/cobra until other things were off cd, and as a prot paladin you almost always had something to press that didnt feel too clunky. The best version of prot paladin (imo) was the wrath 6 9 6 9 rotation. I am very much an ocd must be pressing something kind of person. and thats probably why i was almost always selected as the raid leader. Gotta keep that mind stimulated.. lol...

[naeblis495]

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-charac...world/all/tank

Druids are top tier in BFA...

If they can push some of the highest keys in the hands of a good player , then yes.

[Orloth]

My posts are not formatted cause im mostly writing from phone. I understand it sometimes makes it hard to read and understand.
Anyway from what i understand you want soul cleave to feel more epic cause it consumes souls like spirit bomb which feels good to press. Its like comparing warriors dragons roar or ravager to shield block. They are different category spells.

Secondly how people use their skills and whatnot is very important at the moment cause more people use them wrong, more reports. The soul cleave cap is a good example, people complained alot that soul cleave used their souls and they couldnt press spirit bomb. Mostly skill question but here we are with the blizzard "listening" to players.

Thirdly i just pointed out that fiery brand build feels great in m+ dungeons and its not only viable in raids as you assumed. I did not mean to argue or flame, just pointed out how i felt bout changes.

You're trying to compare Spirit Bomb with a CD, I'm trying to compare it to a Rogue or Druid Finisher. We're talking past each other apparently. I'd really like Soul Cleave to *also* work like a Rogue or Druid Finisher, with Souls being our
form of 'Combo Points'. Analogy isn't perfect because we have spells that generate both Fury and Souls, but *shrug* different classes are different. Currently, Soul Cleave is just an ordinary spender (again, consuming both Fury and Souls, but the imbalance there is a whole thing I've written about a lot). Let me see if I can find a warrior example since you're using those analogies. *reads wowhead for a bit* Hmm, warrior doesn't really have any combo thing that I can see, I recall some for DKs and Druids but not for Warriors. It's kinda like we went the whole expansion with both Shield Block and Ignore Pain, and now we're getting a tanking talent build that doesn't use Shield Block. Shield Block is still part of your rotation but it feels powerful when you hit it. Now for some reason a build disables Shield Block, in favor of making you just spam Ignore Pain. Does that make sense?

That is not a new problem to Shadowlands.

Cool! Text sometimes make us all sound like jerks. I'll try not to assume in the future.

[Tinary]

You're trying to compare Spirit Bomb with a CD, I'm trying to compare it to a Rogue or Druid Finisher. We're talking past each other apparently. I'd really like Soul Cleave to *also* work like a Rogue or Druid Finisher, with Souls being our
form of 'Combo Points'.

Like the chi explosion monks had in mop? I doubt blizzard will change how our souls work cause they removed the monks chi and their finisher spells cause they deemed it too "complicated" and "skillful" and made a spec too difficult to play as a tank for majority.

[Orloth]

Yes, and maybe that's their motivation behind marginalizing Spirit Bomb as 'just a DPS talent'. I stance which I disagree with, mind. But my math brain also tells me how disruptive skill cliffs can be ... so... my brain is a weird place. News at 11.

[Shiza]

yeah, not like monk got any nerfs lately. oh wait, brew had exactly 2 changes since alpha, and both were giant nerfs.

Monk is still overtuned and a top tank which barely receives any damage. And with the Shadowlands changes, they mitigate tons of damage just passively.