Top class for 5.4!

[Hand Banana]

My prediction: Hunters. Losing silencing shot, 5% passive DR (while all the other casters are losing ALL of theirs), gaining 50% more dmg on their main spam (dont pretend like the increased focus matters). Still have everything that makes them ridiculous now, only difference is they get binding shot / Intimidate instead of silencing now..

[Rorke]

not sure if serious

I am serious. The very idea that one spec (Ret) is completely superior to a whole class (Warrior) just like Ferals (one spec) are completely superior to Rogues (whole class) is ridiculous. The fact that druids have 3/4 viable specs in arena where as Rogues are actually playing pve hero specs like assassination or combat because their main pvp spec Sub sucks is a joke in itself.

In before some Ret Paladin 5.3 hero chimes in to say how horrible (When its really not) Ret survivability is and argues that they're balanced. I'm tired of these trash hybrid melee specs like Ret and Enhancement who show up once in a blue moon to cause a complete annoyance to people like me who play real melee classes (as retarded and unskilled that they are lol). Hopefully, Blizzard puts this trash (Ret, enhance) back in their place at to the bottom of the garbage can where they belong.

[Lulbalance]

For some reason, that post made me think of this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

Back to the discussion, I think it's too soon to say. There are a lot more changes coming that can't be taken into account yet. Despite all the people saying warlock, the KJC nerf is going to hurt, so warlock's ranking will depend on what other changes they do to soften the blow from that.

i think it's more dependent on what happens to the heavy hitting melee cleave comps / hunters. admittedly, the first 10-15 games were rough on the PTR.. but you get used to playing without KJC again and making the on use count. feels ok i guess..

if it stays like this though people re-rolling thinking it's going to be an easy time might be disappointed.

[Nicola]

I suppose you haven't seen the latest things they have up for us.

Got a few updates for you guys. Standard disclaimer applies that this is all still in early testing and subject to change.

Fel Flame has gotten a slight rework. It now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can always be cast while moving. Also, it no longer extends the duration of damage over time effects (and, as such, no longer causes them to lose their "snapshotted" stats) and has gotten a small damage buff. The intent here is that you should be able to use this to keep up some damage when you need to move, but you'll want to stick to your standard rotation otherwise.

Looking specifically at Affliction, we're lowering the bonus damage that Malefic Grasp provides and moving that damage over into Haunt and the DoT effects themselves to compensate. We still want Malefic Grasp to be your primary filler for single target DPS, but this will make it a bit less punishing when you can't afford to channel it (especially in PvP). Haunt will once again be interrupted by movement, in favor of the Fel Flame change.

There's been a couple adjustments to the level 90 talents as well. Both Kil'Jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury have had their cooldowns and durations lowered to 60 and 10 seconds, respectively. Mannoroth's Fury now only applies to the core AoE damage spells (Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire), but increases their damage by 100% while active in addition to the range increase. Note that Rain of Fire is being changed to no longer generate enough Burning Embers to be worth using in a single target rotation (so, Destruction shouldn't feel forced into Mannoroth's Fury).

These should hopefully be hitting the PTR in the next build. Once again, please remember that we're very early in the 5.4 development process. Any or all of this may still change before the patch goes live.

I don't think I even have to explain that their new design of fel flame is just a shitty version of scorch with high risk, low reward (getting interrupted means you get locked in both shadow and fire), that putting more damage in haunt ain't good either and that DoT's are extremely likely to get nerfed in a hotfix due too much cleave damage if it goes live.

[Deleted]

I am serious. The very idea that one spec (Ret) is completely superior to a whole class (Warrior) just like Ferals (one spec) are completely superior to Rogues (whole class) is ridiculous. The fact that druids have 3/4 viable specs in arena where as Rogues are actually playing pve hero specs like assassination or combat because their main pvp spec Sub sucks is a joke in itself.

In before some Ret Paladin 5.3 hero chimes in to say how horrible (When its really not) Ret survivability is and argues that they're balanced. I'm tired of these trash hybrid melee specs like Ret and Enhancement who show up once in a blue moon to cause a complete annoyance to people like me who play real melee classes (as retarded and unskilled that they are lol). Hopefully, Blizzard puts this trash (Ret, enhance) back in their place at to the bottom of the garbage can where they belong.

I'm guessing you need to chill the fuck out. Or just off.

[Viradiance]

When has it not been Mage?

[Deleted]

MM hunter/resto dudu/x

by x it might be any melee+ ele and mage and it would work

[Lulbalance]

I suppose you haven't seen the latest things they have up for us.

Got a few updates for you guys. Standard disclaimer applies that this is all still in early testing and subject to change.

Fel Flame has gotten a slight rework. It now has a 1.5 second cast time, but can always be cast while moving. Also, it no longer extends the duration of damage over time effects (and, as such, no longer causes them to lose their "snapshotted" stats) and has gotten a small damage buff. The intent here is that you should be able to use this to keep up some damage when you need to move, but you'll want to stick to your standard rotation otherwise.

Looking specifically at Affliction, we're lowering the bonus damage that Malefic Grasp provides and moving that damage over into Haunt and the DoT effects themselves to compensate. We still want Malefic Grasp to be your primary filler for single target DPS, but this will make it a bit less punishing when you can't afford to channel it (especially in PvP). Haunt will once again be interrupted by movement, in favor of the Fel Flame change.

There's been a couple adjustments to the level 90 talents as well. Both Kil'Jaeden's Cunning and Mannoroth's Fury have had their cooldowns and durations lowered to 60 and 10 seconds, respectively. Mannoroth's Fury now only applies to the core AoE damage spells (Seed of Corruption, Hellfire, Immolation Aura, and Rain of Fire), but increases their damage by 100% while active in addition to the range increase. Note that Rain of Fire is being changed to no longer generate enough Burning Embers to be worth using in a single target rotation (so, Destruction shouldn't feel forced into Mannoroth's Fury).

These should hopefully be hitting the PTR in the next build. Once again, please remember that we're very early in the 5.4 development process. Any or all of this may still change before the patch goes live.

I don't think I even have to explain that their new design of fel flame is just a shitty version of scorch with high risk, low reward (getting interrupted means you get locked in both shadow and fire), that putting more damage in haunt ain't good either and that DoT's are extremely likely to get nerfed in a hotfix due too much cleave damage if it goes live.

yea i said basically the same thing the lock forums a second ago too.. bad change on FF...now a riksy totem killer and not much else. it's if scorch was arcane and fire school..wtf?

i DO like the haunt change.. shifting dmg into haunt and putting weight on a spell that gives back a resource when dispelled is a win imo. i'm not sure being afraid it'll get nerfed is a viable to reason to hate that change. i'm an optimist :/. the only problem i see is being shard starved even more and forced to glyph SS or something.

I also like the shorter KJC..that's a pretty good idea.

[Vathius]

I am serious. The very idea that one spec (Ret) is completely superior to a whole class (Warrior) just like Ferals (one spec) are completely superior to Rogues (whole class) is ridiculous. The fact that druids have 3/4 viable specs in arena where as Rogues are actually playing pve hero specs like assassination or combat because their main pvp spec Sub sucks is a joke in itself.

In before some Ret Paladin 5.3 hero chimes in to say how horrible (When its really not) Ret survivability is and argues that they're balanced. I'm tired of these trash hybrid melee specs like Ret and Enhancement who show up once in a blue moon to cause a complete annoyance to people like me who play real melee classes (as retarded and unskilled that they are lol). Hopefully, Blizzard puts this trash (Ret, enhance) back in their place at to the bottom of the garbage can where they belong.

I feel sorry for your views on this, but you are a minority my friend, and a very small one at that.

[Dumaw]

holy cows! this is just TERRIBLE. lvl 90 Talents all nerfed to the gound. Fel Flame from instant cast to 1.5 sec cast while moving, with a little dmg buff??
And Rainf of fire nerf on the ember generation... really, I've no idea what they´re thinking. They wanna screw MF but they wanna make it attractive to you by making you wanna use it with Rain of Fire to generate embers...

[GodEmperor]

I feel sorry for your views on this, but you are a minority my friend, and a very small one at that.

Why so? I play feral, rogue and warrior and I don't think neither rets and ferals should be better than Warriors and rogues. Take warriors, when I play them, the only option is doing mongo damage, you don't have a lot of utility, you get stuck in roots and other than the rare occasion where you eat a trap for your healers there's nothing you can do other than just damage. Now, how is it even fair that a Ret, a class that brings so much team utility and big heals do the same damage with better burst than a warrior? I know for someone who plays only rets or ferals, it feels right. But believe me it isn't. Dk's are doing good because they're good at what they do, doing unhealable sustained damage much more than the hybrids and breaking out of nearly every CC with ease. Warriors lose their toolkit to monk in MOP, saw their totally unique MS effect getting handed over to every class and are now a 3 Min Burst class doing less burst than Rets with bad sustained and low utility.

[Deleted]

Obviously the top dps class will be hunters not

[Spraxle]

Well definitely not Warlock with the changes as they stand. Of course maybe they don't need to do anything but get their dots up, toss a haunt, and run around for a minute (if the dmg buffs are really that great).

Warriors might see a slight uptick, but they're kind of a joke atm. Mages and Hunters though, they're always an easy pick for dmg dealer and Resto druids for heals.

[Nyaldee]

I am serious. The very idea that one spec (Ret) is completely superior to a whole class (Warrior) just like Ferals (one spec) are completely superior to Rogues (whole class) is ridiculous. The fact that druids have 3/4 viable specs in arena where as Rogues are actually playing pve hero specs like assassination or combat because their main pvp spec Sub sucks is a joke in itself.

In before some Ret Paladin 5.3 hero chimes in to say how horrible (When its really not) Ret survivability is and argues that they're balanced. I'm tired of these trash hybrid melee specs like Ret and Enhancement who show up once in a blue moon to cause a complete annoyance to people like me who play real melee classes (as retarded and unskilled that they are lol). Hopefully, Blizzard puts this trash (Ret, enhance) back in their place at to the bottom of the garbage can where they belong.

This guy... Seriously get lost with your spec racism - many ppls play hybrid specs and playing a competent ret requires twice as much attention as a warrior.

OT: Hunters will be going strong, becouse even now both surv (insane spread dmg) and marksman are viable, just no point to bother when you've BM. Although i predict BM still going strong even with silence shot lost - amount of cc outs is just too high for a spec. Also locks might become a new stars depending on how much they tweak dots and MG, also baseline ae fear increasing cc for all specs will surely improve class a lot (and even push it over the top given how gamebreaking portal can be). As for healers - resto druid and shaman for spellcleaves and dc for hunter based setups, unless Blizz somehow make double melee more viable (don't see how with current situation with cc).

[Nopkplease]

This guy... Seriously get lost with your spec racism - many ppls play hybrid specs and playing a competent ret requires twice as much attention as a warrior.

OT: Hunters will be going strong, becouse even now both surv (insane spread dmg) and marksman are viable, just no point to bother when you've BM. Although i predict BM still going strong even with silence shot lost - amount of cc outs is just too high for a spec. Also locks might become a new stars depending on how much they tweak dots and MG, also baseline ae fear increasing cc for all specs will surely improve class a lot (and even push it over the top given how gamebreaking portal can be). As for healers - resto druid and shaman for spellcleaves and dc for hunter based setups, unless Blizz somehow make double melee more viable (don't see how with current situation with cc).

My prediction is that Lock will start off super amazing and feel like they can actually put out spread pressure again, but it will quickly get hotfixed due to too much spread damage in PvE. If they buff Haunt and Dot damage, I think its just going to be to good to be true during demon soul. It will make comps like Shadowcleave and LSD 2.0 extremely viable again.

I really hate affliction being a single target damage spec though. My very first toon I ever made on November 23rd, 2004 was an affliction lock. It's still my favorite spec/class in the game, after playing basically every single other class to max lvl multiple times. Dot's just fit my play style, I hope the class can get back to more of what it has been prior to MoP.

[helic]

Just go to twitch tv, go to the wow streams, and watch what the "pro's" are switching to. Most of them hop ship really really fast. Keep an eye on Reckful he seems to be on top of this.

[Strear]

I am serious. The very idea that one spec (Ret) is completely superior to a whole class (Warrior) just like Ferals (one spec) are completely superior to Rogues (whole class) is ridiculous. The fact that druids have 3/4 viable specs in arena where as Rogues are actually playing pve hero specs like assassination or combat because their main pvp spec Sub sucks is a joke in itself.

In before some Ret Paladin 5.3 hero chimes in to say how horrible (When its really not) Ret survivability is and argues that they're balanced. I'm tired of these trash hybrid melee specs like Ret and Enhancement who show up once in a blue moon to cause a complete annoyance to people like me who play real melee classes (as retarded and unskilled that they are lol). Hopefully, Blizzard puts this trash (Ret, enhance) back in their place at to the bottom of the garbage can where they belong.

Remember we're playing a game ... why so much hate, don't you think you're exxagerating ? It's not, as you said in a precedent message, that we " might " be superior in terms of damage, I agree we shouldn't. But you don't even agree that we should at least be equal. And then I strongly disagree. When we chose a character class, we didn't choose " you'll be able to do a bit of everything, but be medioce in everything ". I can't imagine why we could be good healers, good tanks, and then should be bad dps. The thing should be that pure " melee " should have 2 or 3 really different specs, one mostly controlling, one mostly doing melee damage, another one doing a mix of melee and distant damage (with a crossbow ie) ...

Among World of Warcraft lore, Paladins are leader in batlles, strong holy warriors, those heroes everyone remembers in the world's history .... and in World of Warcraft, even if some " Ingame " reality might make things seem different, those war heroes are Retribution paladins. Retribution SHOULD be the main spec in most people's minds when they think about paladins ... not healers, nor tanks.

To come back to the topic, what I'm curious about, is I wonder if melee will be closer to distant dps in terms of viability in RBG, or if it'll globally remain the same ?

[Deleted]

Looks like the devs are throwing buffs at locks with both hands. Guessing GC got bored with his huntard and rerolled lock.

[Metacrias]

For some reason, that post made me think of this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0

Back to the discussion, I think it's too soon to say. There are a lot more changes coming that can't be taken into account yet. Despite all the people saying warlock, the KJC nerf is going to hurt, so warlock's ranking will depend on what other changes they do to soften the blow from that.

This. Gotta be a bit more sober-minded about saying too much about 5.4 right now. It's still very, very early in the PTR and this is expected to be the biggest patch of the expansion so a lot is getting added and changed and it is way too early to compare right now. They have changed abilities for several classes several times in just a few days time. the KJC nerf for locks is one of the changes getting the most complaints (along with the removal of the 15% stamina/armor buff for Moonkins and Spriests) and I do find it problematic, but the developers are still fiddling around with what they are going to do with it and the backlash against the initial proposals likely will push them to find a less blatant way to nerf it. If KJC becomes nothing more than an ele shammy's Spiritwalker's Grace it's not going to be very useful (maybe KJC should vary by spec? the change is particularly bad for destro given the long cast times, esp for Chaos Bolt, while it's less problematic for Aff given the instant cast of DoTs, fel flame (which is getting buffed it looks like) and with Haunt likely to be castable while moving).

Specific changes aside, remember also that they work on different specs/classes at different times and continually go back and adjust as they alter other classes/specs so if one class looks like it is getting nerfed more than the rest it's a safe bet that it will be corrected through future nerfs to others or a revision of the nerfs... And, of course, it's important to keep in mind that they have to balance specs for PVE and PVP simultaneously! I am new to PvP but not PVE - now that I'm getting to know both it's becoming more obvious why there can be so much disagreement on where each spec stands relative to others, especially while changes are being announced daily: some things that look like just a mild nerf to a PVEer may seem awful to a PVP player of the same spec and vice verse.

It would be far too much to do in a patch, but I'd love to see them figure out a way to better separate PVE and PVP set-ups for the same spec in a way that makes it easy to switch between the two. Perhaps something similar to the current ability to switch between two specs. They could develop a system that allows you to switch between a PvP oriented and PvE oriented version of the same spec so each spec has two versions/modes/what-have-you. The differences could be made relatively mild, so the spec is largely the same for PvE and PvP but with enough differences to make it so you wouldn't want to enter a bg in PvE mode or a raid in PvP mode. For example, let's say you're an Ele Shammy (my main spec which I pve with only). Ele has had a lot of balance issues over the past two years due to problems reconciling PvP & PvE. Totems, Ascendance, several long CDs and a few other hallmarks of the class/spec just seem to lend themselves to PvE more so than PVP. An unmoving, low hp totem is more useful in a raid boss fight where it isn't going to draw enough threat to be blasted out of existence the second it's laid out and will be more useful given how bosses are fought in relatively small, confined areas rather than BGs where a fight can move all over and turn into a chase. Ascendance is easily the strongest PvE CD in the game, but setting up a full blown, max power ascendance requires several GCDs (Potion of Jade Serpent, any CDs to improve haste/int/etc, a totem/CD to shield you while in ascendance, Flame Shock and sometimes a few other CDs [I like to pop bloodlust when available right before ascendance and I always pop Ancestral Guidance as it is an amazingly powerful heal for myself and teammates while used in Ascendance). After it is set up, it requires 15 seconds of being stationary and can easily be ruined by a silence, fear, stun, etc. In PvE, this isn't tough to do but in PvP it's damn near impossible. Thus, Ele can be simultaneously OP in PVE and underpowered in PVP simply because of the standard mechanics of the spec. So, if you could switch between PvP and PvE versions on the fly (or perhaps only when not in a bg/arena/raid) where these abilities could be tweaked slightly differently without changing their nature would be useful. Perhaps a PvP ele shammy could move while in Ascendance but not a PvE, maybe the CDs on totems would be shorter for PvP or totem HP would be buffed. More generically, PvP mode for any spec could have different baseline stats with boosted PvP resil/power and reductions to others.

Of course, this is just a very vague idea and would need a lot of work, tweaking, etc. to actually be implemented. At the very least, I'd like to be able to set up PvP and PvE versions of each spec even if that just means being allowed to have two different talent/glyph setups saved for a single spec (so you don't have to redo your glyphs and talents everytime you switch between PvE and PvP which you currently have to do unless you choose to double spec in the same spec - for example, my Priest has two specs but bothare shadow: one is preset for PvP and the other for PvE).

In any case, I feel Blizzard needs to find a better way to separate PvP and PvE so that they can be balanced somewhat separately. Unfortunately, they also need to find more/better ways to make it easier to get into PvP if you're mostly a PVEer and vice verse - these goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but do complicate each other.

[Taros]

Looks like the devs are throwing buffs at locks with both hands. Guessing GC got bored with his huntard and rerolled lock.

Lol'd Irl. :P