Patch 6.0 Patch Notes - Warlords of Draenor

[Teetster]

Half or more of the patch notes is "here are things we removed... and why this is great!"

Jesus H Christ.

I couldn't even finish reading it. I'm just blown away that anyone on the development team could with a straight face think that what they are doing is at all an improvement on the game. Can there be any doubt at this point that this expansion is going to be an epic failure?

[DrakeWurrum]

Healing Tide Totem is now available only to Restoration Shaman.

I would significantly prefer to keep that, and lose Healing Stream Totem. Unfortunately, it seems the new dev in charge of balance is dead set on removing raid cooldowns from DPS specs in general. So freaking BORING!

Unleash Flame no longer deals direct damage, but now increases the damage of the Shaman's next Fire spell by 40% (up from 30%).
Unleash Frost no longer deals direct damage, but now always snares the target by 70% (rather than only when the target is already snared by a Frost spell).
Unleash Wind no longer deals direct damage, but now increases attack speed by 60% (up from 50%).

I'm not really liking this change. I applaud the goal of trying to make other spells "feel" like they're doing more on the damage meter, but this makes Unleash Elements "feel" even more lackluster. It still is going to be important to our rotation and all, but the spell just doesn't seem impressive like this. Every 15 seconds, I get to improve my auto attacks and my Flame Shock? I'd rather see Unleash Wind boost Stormstrike damage, and Unleash Flame boost Lava Lash damage.

[Deleted]

Will WoW fans ever stop complaining? The beta isn't even out for fuck's sake stop crying because some abilities are being removed.. It is for the best.

[401Toffees]

Who do I speak to about cancelling my pre-order of WoD? These changes do nothing but aim the game at kiddies with virtually no skill capability. Regardless of whether these are beta/alpha notes or not, they show the direction that the game is going and for the first time in 9 years, I have no inclination to play at a skill level totally below what I've become accustomed to.

[mindw0rk]

Disgusted by hunter changes. I usually approve changes. Loved mana to focus switch. But removing some of the key abilities that hunters had since release and that defined the class? Fuck you Blizzard

[Siddown]

What hyperbole are you talking about? I'm not saying "OH NO! DKs are losing Army of the Dead! They're going to suck now! No one will ever play one again! The class is ruined! Blizzard hates us all!"

You are right, you specifically haven't said that, but plenty of others in this thread have. This thread is full of people threatening to rage quit over these patch notes. Hell, back when they announced that they wanted to change Charge Stun to a Root in 5.4, people threatened to quit over Blizzard destroying an Iconic ability (the first time I really heard people use that term).

Like look at the two posts right above this one for example, one quitting and one saying "fuck you" to Blizzard. Those are the people I am talking about.

EDIT: And if you go to the DK forum, a number of people in the WoD Thread are saying they are going to quit over losing AOTD...so, yeah. You specifically never said that, and I apologize for saying you did, but enough others are saying it.

[jellmoo]

You are right, you specifically haven't said that, but plenty of others in this thread have. This thread is full of people threatening to rage quit over these patch notes. Hell, back when they announced that they wanted to change Charge Stun to a Root in 5.4, people threatened to quit over Blizzard destroying an Iconic ability (the first time I really heard people use that term).

Like look at the two posts right above this one for example, one quitting and one saying "fuck you" to Blizzard. Those are the people I am talking about.

EDIT: And if you go to the DK forum, a number of people in the WoD Thread are saying they are going to quit over losing AOTD...so, yeah. You specifically never said that, and I apologize for saying you did, but enough others are saying it.

And I totally agree with you on those cases. It doesn't help anyone or anything to go crazy, call Blizzard names, or threaten to "rage quite" because you don't like a set of patch notes. Those posts don't achieve much other than let off steam, and I agree that we aren't anywhere near that point yet.

For me, I just want to discuss items that I think are a legitimate concern for players. Leave the hyperbole at the door, just talk about the impact some of these changes will have. Obviously without knowing the entire WoD picture, we can't reach definitive conclusions, but by and large I think that a discussion should be possible.

So... um... Best Friends Forever?

[May90]

*Blizzard adds an ability*
- Damn it, I already have 40 keybinds I use frequently, and you add one more stupid ability and ruin my whole rotation? FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard removes an ability*
- Damn it, you removed the ability that defined my class! FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard rebalances an ability*
- Damn it, you made this ability too weak/strong and ruined the balance! FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard doesn't change anything*
- Damn it, I'm bored playing this stalemate game. Change anything already! FU Blizzard.

[Siddown]

And I totally agree with you on those cases. It doesn't help anyone or anything to go crazy, call Blizzard names, or threaten to "rage quite" because you don't like a set of patch notes. Those posts don't achieve much other than let off steam, and I agree that we aren't anywhere near that point yet.

For me, I just want to discuss items that I think are a legitimate concern for players. Leave the hyperbole at the door, just talk about the impact some of these changes will have. Obviously without knowing the entire WoD picture, we can't reach definitive conclusions, but by and large I think that a discussion should be possible.

So... um... Best Friends Forever?

Agreed, discussions should be had, but way too many people are getting much to emotional about what are just mechanics in a video game.

Maybe it's because I've played so many different classes, or that I've jumped back and forth between Horde and Alliance so much, I just don't get all that attached to abilities or factions. Also, as you can tell, I'm really against the idea that something shouldn't be changed simply because it's been around for a while. Things like Zerker stance which Warriors rarely use in MoP. If it isn't needed, get rid of it. To me that someone wouldn't want that simply because it was there in Vanilla (despite being much different then) just seems odd to me, but I guess okay (it's their right), the fact that someone would threaten to quit over it is just insane to me.

Also, I think May90 above basically laid out the Catch 22 that Blizzard has created for themselves. The reality is, they should have been cleaning this bloat from the start, but I know that isn't always easy.

And yes, best friends simply because your avatar picture rocks.

[Gaviin]

Rogues were touched less than other classes, absolutely true, but some of that stems from them having fewer active buttons to begin with. Stripping away abilities from a class that already has relatively few creates an even more watered down play style. Adding in the ability to use another weapon, but *wink wink nudge nudge* it won't be as good a choice is just a tease.

/facepalm

You do realize that the Assassination abilities are based on weapon damage and non-dagger weapons have higher damage (with slower speeds), right? Net effect will be equal damage between weapon types.

Some really ridiculous complaining in this thread.

[Deleted]

I can't believe Blizzard is going to sell this disaster of a patch to you guys for $49.99

So much this.
And yet, with multitude of players willing to pay for a bitchslap, what can you do?

- - - Updated - - -

*Blizzard adds an ability*
- Damn it, I already have 40 keybinds I use frequently, and you add one more stupid ability and ruin my whole rotation? FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard removes an ability*
- Damn it, you removed the ability that defined my class! FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard rebalances an ability*
- Damn it, you made this ability too weak/strong and ruined the balance! FU Blizzard.

*Blizzard doesn't change anything*
- Damn it, I'm bored playing this stalemate game. Change anything already! FU Blizzard.

I know it's shocking, but making good games is not exactly a kindergarten pastime.
You see, ability pruning is a good thing as long as you don't botch it as pathetically as Blizz did.

I will only give you examples from the two classes I play the most:

- MM

Removal of the one baseline offensive CD is gutting the class. It would go through much better if MM lost explosive trap instead (PvP QQ masters would still have snakes and frost, plus Silencing Shot)
Removal of the one DoT that needed keeping up was just dumbing down the spec. *Possible* proper counter to ability bloat would be making Chimera a talent alternative to some passives, with one of them trading SrS entirely for small dmg buff, resulting in a small net dps loss to pay for simplification.
Honestly, hunters were not really so damn bad off in terms of button bloat as, say, locks, anyway.

Frost:
- Removal of Death Coil does not simplify the game; players not caring about a bit of extra damage when closing into melee range is impossible would not have it bound anyway
- Removal of necromancy does not simplify the game, it just makes it more bland and boring, as opposed to, for example, removing Pillar of Frost or, say, Necrotic Strike - or converting Rune Tap (Blood Tap?) into something not macroed with Frost Strike.

Generally, all straight dumbing down should be optional via talents and glyphs. Don't want a button? Take this passive for a 2% decrease in potential dps. Five such choices and you have 10% dps for 5 extra buttons. Oh, you want this particular effect to synergize with X and Y? Here's a glyph for you. Perfect fookin balance and freedom of choice.

What Blizzard did was gutting specs like it was a slaughter season on a chicken farm and removing/castrating crucial flavour skills which made the game cool to play.

[Dinozor]

I like most of the changes, but there are a few things that are the most boneheaded decisions I've ever heard. Firstly, this is the nail in the coffin for the Inscription profession. Why did prices get so high on glyphs? Because in Cataclysm they were changed to be learned permanently instead of overwriting glyphs previously in place, resulting in poor income for Scribes since each character would only buy a glyph a maximum of one time... and now Glyphs serve as little more than stock. Now that we'll learn most of the glyphs, the remaining ones will cost like 1000G. Glyphs should definitely overwrite the existing ones, just like you don't permanently learn enchants or gems, and need to replace the old ones (assuming you do change them).

Also at one point I'd seen a blue post on changes to the gearing process... PvE will be 100% killed for me if stats on gear from raids are randomly generated and primary stats change depending on spec (so you can have the same gear for holy & ret for example). It just takes any interest out of the gearing process and further changes it into purely look at the item level and move along. Perhaps it's so Blizzard can start selling gear with the stats you want in the Blizzard store -__-

[Xayl1]

I like most of the changes, but there are a few things that are the most boneheaded decisions I've ever heard. Firstly, this is the nail in the coffin for the Inscription profession. Why did prices get so high on glyphs? Because in Cataclysm they were changed to be learned permanently instead of overwriting glyphs previously in place, resulting in poor income for Scribes since each character would only buy a glyph a maximum of one time... and now Glyphs serve as little more than stock. Now that we'll learn most of the glyphs, the remaining ones will cost like 1000G. Glyphs should definitely overwrite the existing ones, just like you don't permanently learn enchants or gems, and need to replace the old ones (assuming you do change them).

Also at one point I'd seen a blue post on changes to the gearing process... PvE will be 100% killed for me if stats on gear from raids are randomly generated and primary stats change depending on spec (so you can have the same gear for holy & ret for example). It just takes any interest out of the gearing process and further changes it into purely look at the item level and move along. Perhaps it's so Blizzard can start selling gear with the stats you want in the Blizzard store -__-

Gear will still have set secondary stats for raids and dungeons. Tertiary and gem slots will be random and likely some quest rewards will as well but there is still going to be non randomized boss drops

[Deleted]

I totally share the suspicion random factor in gear quality is there to drive sales of gear for cash.

[Viix]

OMFG avenging wrath for ret only? That just sucks hell. Glad I quitted.

[Alternategray]

Half or more of the patch notes is "here are things we removed... and why this is great!"

Jesus H Christ.

I couldn't even finish reading it. I'm just blown away that anyone on the development team could with a straight face think that what they are doing is at all an improvement on the game. Can there be any doubt at this point that this expansion is going to be an epic failure?

Basically, there's been way, way too many times lately where they've had to do the "...and that's why this is great!" part. If it's a great change, if it's a necessary change you won't have to tell players why. They'll know. If I've played 20+ hours a week for years, I know what the problems are with the class. Don't remove Army of the Dead and then tell me it makes my class better, it's insulting. I've stuck through many changes in WoW over the last few years that I really didn't like, but 6.0 is it for me. How much do they think they can really change things before they find that magic NGE/Combat-Upgrade spot? The funny thing is, just like with all the other severe drops in subscriptions they'll find anything to blame it on but the changes they made in the game. "When we launched this expac pre-patch, our numbers dropped 2 million in a month. Huh. That's just the way the MMO cookie crumbles, I guess". No. That's arrogant head devs continually refusing to take responsibility for piss-poor design decisions.

Recently the whole thing reeks of devs trying to fulfill a corporate directive or guideline without openly stating what the directive is because it would be immensely unpopular with many of the players. Honestly, if they said "we're trying to make the game easy enough that someone can buy all the level 90s they want and be a viable player the very first day they log in without having to put too much effort in" (i.e., no napkin math, and no having to learn how different abilities and cooldowns work together or how they complement each other) it would raise serious hell. But that's exactly where they're going.