Patch 7.1 Release - October 25th, Legion Dev Q&A - Ion Hazzikostas, Oct 13 Hotfixes

[chaud]

Legion Developer Q&A - Ion Hazzikostas
WatcherDev is back for another Q&A, this time as Game Director for World of Warcraft!

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Patch 7.0.3 Hotfixes - October 13

Bonus Events

• Entering a Timewalking Dungeon will no longer clear any planted plants from the Druid Evergreen upgrade.
  
• The fireballs from the cooking buff "Pepper Breath" should now scale properly in Timewalking.
  
• Class Hall Set 6-piece and 8-piece bonuses should now scale properly in Timewalking.

Classes

Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Ironfur no longer incorrectly multiplies Bonus Armor effects from temporary buffs.
  
• (Balance) New Moon, Half Moon, and Full Moon are now in the Arcane spell school.

Items

• Spirit Cauldrons no longer have collision.

Player versus Player
Reminder: These changes are only active while in PvP combat situations and do not affect PvE. Many more Honor Talent changes are coming with Patch 7.1, including changes to Destruction Warlocks, Windwalker Monks, Death Knights, Balance Druids, and Restoration Druids.

Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Frost

• Ice Form now has a 60 second cooldown (was 45 seconds).
  
• Ice Form can no longer be cast while stunned.
  
• Ice Form will now cause the Mage to be immune to only stuns, instead of other unintended crowd-control effects, such as Paralysis.
  
• Frostbolt no longer deals increased damage in PvP (was a multiplier of +10%).
  
  • Developers’ Notes: Frost Mages are intended to create burst windows with Shatter and Glacial Spike, but have been reaching unintended levels of damage. By reducing Frostbolt damage, we’re reducing the potential size of Icicles and Glacial Spike burst. The Ice Form fixes should reduce its uptime, which was too high.
    

Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Beast Mastery

• Beast Mastery Agility reduced by 10% in PvP.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: We’ve found Beast Mastery damage to be too high, but we don’t feel that it’s due to any specific ability or mechanic, so we’re reducing the overall PvP template.
    

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Mistweaver

• Mistwalk can no longer be cast while silenced.

• Soothing Mist healing reduced by 10% in PvP. (Soothing Mist version of Ancient Mistweaver Arts is unaffected.)
  
• Soothing Mist healing cast by Summon Jade Serpent Statue reduced by 10% in PvP.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: Mistweavers been one of our strongest healers. We feel Soothing Mist is doing too much healing per second on its own, making it so that the Mistweaver doesn’t have to use cast-time healing spells as much as other healers, even when their target is taking high amounts of damage. We’re reducing Soothing Mist slightly to address this. Mistwalk was never intended to be used while the Mistweaver was silenced or locked out of Nature, so we’ve fixed that as a bug.
    

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)

• Pure of Heart no longer causes Cleanse to incur a cooldown when it removes poisons and diseases.
  
• Pure of Heart no longer triggers when healed by a periodic heal effect, but will trigger when a spell such as Rejuvenation is initially cast.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: Retribution Paladins are designed to be a formidable damage dealer and also have a protective, counter-control kit for their allies. Pure of Heart is intended to “soft-counter” poisons and diseases, but we feel it’s too strong currently when the Paladin is paired with a healing-over-time healer. Pure of Heart will now only trigger when a healing spell is applied, but not periodically during the spell.
    

Retribution

• Blessing of Sanctuary now has a 30 second cooldown, up from 25 seconds.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: Blessing of Sanctuary has proven to be a strong, signature Honor Talent, but we feel its cooldown is too short.
    

Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Assassination

• System Shock now properly requires an Envenom cast with 5 or more combo points.
  
• System Shock’s damage has been reduced by 20%.
  
• Assassination’s Agility has been reduced by 5% in PvP.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: The Assassination Rogue is intended to be a strong, persistent damage dealer that pressures targets but lacks the utility that Outlaw excels in or the mobility that Subtlety provides. We’ve been monitoring their damage and feel its higher than intended, and we’ve found some bugs with System Shock contributed to this. We’ve also altered their PvP template to effectively reduce their damage.
    

Outlaw

• Control is King will no longer stack Adrenaline Rush above a 3 second duration.
  
  • Developers’ Notes: Control is King is intended to be an attractive choice for the Outlaw Rogue when within a control oriented team composition. This has worked out a bit too well. Now, subsequent procs of Control of King will no longer add to the duration, and instead will just refresh itself.
    

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Enhancement

• Stormstrike’s damage is reduced by 15% in PvP.
  
• Heroism and Bloodlust now have a 60 second cooldown when modified by Shamanism (was 45 seconds).
  
  • Developers’ Notes: The Enhancement Shaman is intended to be a formidable damage dealer who also provides offensive group utility through totems and buffs. Shamanism has been a popular choice for the Enhancement Shaman, allowing them to use Bloodlust/Heroism frequently and also in Arena combat. We like the utility this gives the Shaman, but feel its uptime is too high. Further, we feel the Enhancement Shaman’s burst damage with Stormstrike has been reaching unintended levels.
    

[kornek21]

them nerf's, gotta love em!!!, and no..not sarcasm

[dacoolist]

Them 40,000DPS timewalking dungeons.. RIP: "Class Hall Set 6-piece and 8-piece bonuses should now scale properly in Timewalking."

[IIamaKing]

There is a large portion of the community that is looking to play the strongest thing.

DURR No shit. No one wants to play a class that is behind through no control of the player.

There are moments of excitement when a legendary item drops that you would not have with a more predictable way of obtaining them.

I also think this is bullshit too. I was plenty excited and pleased as I unlocked stuff through out MoP.

[Isoge]

well... there we go again, more rogue nerfs! great----

[Darkke]

Frost mage is way better than the numbers on logging sites suggest because a lot of the best mages aren't playing Frost right now.

That's just a really stupid statement. Reason why those best mages don't play Frost is because those best mages always play the best spec. That's like saying that gWhiz just looks slow because no good driver drives it in WRC.

If Frost mages were buffed slowly into being the best, lots of Fire players will be upset about the effort they already put into their artifact. Players will also switch to Frost, having it swing far ahead of Fire in logs and making it look very strong.

So people who put effort into the frost artifact can go **** themselves because fire mages would feel bad if frost was actually competitive spec?

The team is trying to avoid wild swings in class balance.

*cough*Prot Warrior*cough*

Edit:

There are moments of excitement when a legendary item drops that you would not have with a more predictable way of obtaining them.

Yeah I felt so exited when I got Sephuz's Secret as a raider who never does any PvP.

[Thrackerzod]

"The team wants to make Barrage more consistent, but they have to make sure you can still stand on a hill and hit mobs below you. It may get changed to a cone that is cut in half so that you don't pull things flying above you."

What if you need to shoot something standing on a hill above you? Can we just make it so that it only hits mobs you are in combat with and be done with it?

[hawkleberryfin]

"The team wants to make Barrage more consistent, but they have to make sure you can still stand on a hill and hit mobs below you. It may get changed to a cone that is cut in half so that you don't pull things flying above you."

What if you need to shoot something standing on a hill above you? Can we just make it so that it only hits mobs you are in combat with and be done with it?

Plus it would make it seem more "marksmany" to only hit the targets you want, rather than spray and pray.

[ejpaints]

Is it me or are they just tip toeing around the topic of AP being restricted to a particular weapon in the class balance topic. They don't want fire mages to feel bad, but don't seem to care that people have put time into other artifacts because they were naive enough to believe things would be close.

I'm also noticing that they used to say actual data from players trumped sims. Now they're sorta saying player data doesn't count either because anyone on the bottom just isn't any good.

[NFA]

"We know the current legendary system sucks but we won't actually admit we fucked up so we'll just keep pretending its fine because after all its RNG so therefor you can always use RNG as a scapegoat to prevent any improvements being made"

Also fucking kek at the whole "It feels exciting to never know when your legendary will drop!" attitude. Yeah, maybe for them seeing as they obviously don't play their own damn game more than a few hours a week. The whole excitement novelty quickly wore off and now its a more tedious grind than it would have been simply following the old system. At least that way you knew you were making progress towards it, right now I don't even believe there's any kind of "bad luck protection" in the game, because there's literally zero evidence hinting towards such a system considering the fucked up state of obtaining legendary items at the moment.

Yep, I mad. Fite me

[Dug]

That's an interesting point he makes about consumables and progress. You don't actually need them, and they're rather useless when learning fights and working out strats. Players (top raiders) set these silly standards of raiding and optimization that people think you cannot play without them.

Like I only just started buying flasks because we're doing heroic progression. I wasn't going to fuck around with them for normal. I'll buy pots when we need more dps for a fight we have down but not just to waste 40 pots on a 20 wipe fight.

[splatomat]

That bit about frost mages seemed incredibly herpy-derpy.

The best mage players play the best spec. They pick the best talents too. Oh, you know what else they do? Grab the best gear!

[Sorshen]

"There is frustration when you don't get a legendary item and the team is aware of this. Many of them still don't have a legendary!"

Water is wet.

"There are systems in place to prevent extreme bad luck from occurring."

Ok.

[Tenjen]

There is a large portion of the community that is looking to play the strongest thing.

DURR No shit. No one wants to play a class that is behind through no control of the player.

There are moments of excitement when a legendary item drops that you would not have with a more predictable way of obtaining them.

I also think this is bullshit too. I was plenty excited and pleased as I unlocked stuff through out MoP.

you can't pick and choose phrases from an arguement. those statements are part of a bigger whole that they are talking about and pointing to.

[IIamaKing]

"The team wants to make Barrage more consistent, but they have to make sure you can still stand on a hill and hit mobs below you. It may get changed to a cone that is cut in half so that you don't pull things flying above you."

What if you need to shoot something standing on a hill above you? Can we just make it so that it only hits mobs you are in combat with and be done with it?

But then how would the barage monster pull whole hallways and wipe groups...silly.

- - - Updated - - -

"We know the current legendary system sucks but we won't actually admit we fucked up so we'll just keep pretending its fine because after all its RNG so therefor you can always use RNG as a scapegoat to prevent any improvements being made"

Also fucking kek at the whole "It feels exciting to never know when your legendary will drop!" attitude. Yeah, maybe for them seeing as they obviously don't play their own damn game more than a few hours a week. The whole excitement novelty quickly wore off and now its a more tedious grind than it would have been simply following the old system. At least that way you knew you were making progress towards it, right now I don't even believe there's any kind of "bad luck protection" in the game, because there's literally zero evidence hinting towards such a system considering the fucked up state of obtaining legendary items at the moment.

Yep, I mad. Fite me

I too am dubious of the bad luck protection when fresh dinged 110s are getting theirs hours after reaching cap and here we "no lifers" are with weeks played, possibly 1000s of bosses killed and still bubkis.

[skumnasty]

"We’ve found Beast Mastery damage to be too high, but we don’t feel that it’s due to any specific ability or mechanic, so we’re reducing the overall PvP template."

HA! How about the mechanic that they can literally stand behind a pole an entire arena while they dish out 75-90% of their practically unavoidable damage? So tired of this trash.

They need to implement some sort of fix for this garbage, like while you aren't in LoS of the actual hunter the pets move slower or something so you don't just get beat to death while trying to chase them around their pole (just an example).

[IIamaKing]

That's an interesting point he makes about consumables and progress. You don't actually need them, and they're rather useless when learning fights and working out strats. Players (top raiders) set these silly standards of raiding and optimization that people think you cannot play without them.

Like I only just started buying flasks because we're doing heroic progression. I wasn't going to fuck around with them for normal. I'll buy pots when we need more dps for a fight we have down but not just to waste 40 pots on a 20 wipe fight.

I remember a time when flasks and pots and such were more a luxury opposed to a player imposed necessity. I always had and used em, because I like to go the extra mile.

Right now, I am giving out pots to my raiders on attempts I think they should be used, I dont want my friends feeling required to dump thousands of gold per wipe. Its easy enough to farm up 100 pots to dole out.

[Coffeexbean]

I love that they are sticking to their legendary plan and not giving in to the entitled "hardcore" babies who waste their time crying about how they spend all their free time grinding items that were never meant to be farmed

[Thundermoose]

Haha, that QA was a load of bull... Worse than the first.

[IIamaKing]

you can't pick and choose phrases from an arguement. those statements are part of a bigger whole that they are talking about and pointing to.

Its not an argument, its an interview. Both of those statements are pretty well self contained.

"lots of people like to play the best class/spec" not a lot else needs to be said about this point.

"random drops are exciting" likewise requires no context to disagree with.