Patch 7.2.5 - Guardian Druid Changes, Destruction Warlock Resource Changes, Arena Cup

[chaud]

Necromancer Influencer Summit 2017: New Information on Skills, Sets, and More

Un'Goro Decks From the Pros for Dinos, Elementals, and Turtles of All Shapes and Sizes

Patch 7.2.5 - Guardian Changes

In my earlier post on this thread, I mentioned we were already considering what the right changes to Guardian would be going into Tomb, but that it was likely going to be for 7.2.5 and not 7.2. In the first 7.2.5 PTR, you can expect to see the following changes to Guardian:

--Mark of Ursol removed
--Maul costs 30 Rage (from 20), is now on the GCD, can now proc Gore, and damage increased by 400%.

I imagine the first change is most pertinent to those focused on the broader issue of tank balance. It may seem rather extreme, and that's part of why doing it mid-tier wasn't the plan we went with. But two factors that were important were 1) Mark of Ursol's design (trade your physical AM for a magical AM) was somewhat incompatible with any use of magic damage other than an occasional threatening spike, and 2) Druids had little in the way of identifiable weaknesses or things that potentially scare them. Even without Mark of Ursol, they have a mastery that's fully effective against magic, multiple medium to long cooldowns, Frenzied Regeneration, and some passives like Adaptive Fur. While we'll be continuing to watch this in 7.2.5 development, our expectation is that they will not struggle to complete content that involves magic damage--which the clearest test of why a button that allows them to mitigate it so much further is not needed at all.

Destruction Warlock Resource Changes in 7.2.5

As we've mentioned before, we’re making a number of changes to the resource model for Destruction Warlocks in the next patch. The goal is to create smoother, more granular, less random Soul Shard generation and make Chaos Bolt casts feel more impactful.

First, for Destruction Warlocks, Soul Shards are being split into parts of 10, which we’re currently calling Soul Shard Fragments. Mechanically, this will be similar to the Mists of Pandaria resource system of Burning Embers, except we want to go with a consistent Soul Shard visual, updated Soul Shard UI (work in progress), and name for the resource across all 3 Warlock specs. Some relevant spell changes:

• Incinerate generates 1 Soul Shard Fragment. Doubled on critical strikes. Fire and Brimstone (talent) will cause Incinerate to generate 1 Soul Shard Fragment per target hit, also doubled on critical strikes.
• Immolate periodic damage has a 50% chance to generate 1 Soul Shard Fragment. 100% chance on critical strikes.
• Conflagrate generates 6 Soul Shard Fragments.
• Dimensional Rift (artifact active) generates 3 Soul Shard Fragments.

The net result of these changes is that every baseline rotational damage spell will contribute to Soul Shard generation, pushing your resource forward at a steady pace.

Second, Soul Shard generation/refund rate is being reduced overall, mainly for the single-target rotation. However, this is coupled with major damage increases to both Soul Shard spenders - Chaos Bolt and Rain of Fire. Combined, this means that Chaos Bolts will be cast less frequently, but they will hit much harder:

• Soul Shard refund chance of Soul Conduit (talent) reduced to 12%. Soulsnatcher (artifact bronze trait) reduced to 3% per point.
• Chaos Bolt damage increased by 40%. Rain of Fire damage increased by 25%.

For the AOE rotation, Fire and Brimstone (talent) will cause Incinerate to generate Soul Shard Fragments per target hit, which would largely push Immolate out of the AOE rotation with enough targets. Alternately, if you want to go down the route of maintaining Immolate on all targets in a clumped AOE situation, Cataclysm (talent) will have reduced cooldown (30 sec) and slightly reduced cast time, making it easier for you to do so.

As usual, everything discussed here will continue to be iterated on during 7.2.5 PTR and may change based on further playtesting and feedback.

Arena Cup #1 LIVE Saturday 11am PDT: Tune In!

Cup #1 of the WoW® Arena World Championship goes live tomorrow. To keep up with the action, tune in to the broadcast at 10.30am PDT, with matches kicking off at 11am PDT sharp. Don’t miss out!

Here’s where to catch the action, Saturday 8th at 11am PDT

The Teams You Will See
Eight intrepid teams are fighting for glory in Cup #1 for North America.

• Panda Global
• Fragment Apparel
• Meatballs
• Sneaky Snakes
• Vim N Vinegar
• Union
• Method
• Tempo Storm

Your Hosts
These are the faces (and voices) providing expert opinion, hype and point-by-point analysis.

• Elliott 'Venruki’ Venczel
• Jared ‘Vhell’ Coulston
• Josh ‘Lore’ Allen
• Sid ‘Supatease’ Compston

Round One Of The Championship
This is the very first event for teams hoping to make it to the WoW® Arena World Championship final at BlizzCon. So what’s it all about? It’s about epic players—masters of their craft—pitted against one another to show-off gameplay and win the day. It’s a test of mental strength, reaction time and pure passion. Check out last year’s Championship winning moment here.

Points Promote Players – Get Involved!

Cup Events

• 1st place: $3,000, 160 points
  
• 2nd place: $1,500, 80 points
  
• 3rd place: $1,000, 36 points
  
• 4th place: $500, 20 points
  
• 5th and 6th places: 12 points each
  

Approved Community Events

• 1st place: 40 points
  
• 2nd place: 20 points
  
• 3rd place: 12 points
  
• 4th place: 8 points
  
• 5th and 6th places: N/A
  

Find out more in our Arena World Championship announcement here.

Want In On The Action?
We want to see a ton of community involvement, and strongly recommend some of you out there hold your own events. Not only will you be part of the action, you’ll help teams place higher on the ladder— as approved community events award points too! Want to know more? Get in touch. Want to run your own event? Apply here.

Good luck to all the teams, and see you tomorrow during the stream!

Blue Posts

Legion Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part 2 - Account Wide Criteria
My account has Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part 1 on my Rogue, but my raid had me swap mains, so now I'm on a Shaman. If I do Pathfinder, Part 2 on my Shaman, will my account still register both achievements as complete for flying?
Yes, as long as Pathfinder Part 1 is complete on your Rogue, when you complete Pathfinder Part 2 on your Shaman it should count for the full meta to allow flying. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

[Sesshomaru]

My reaction as a Warlock main:

Spoiler: 

Finally great again!

[Uselessrouge]

i told my guild mate yesterday that tank druid is a total joke and they should nerf MoU ^^ guess they listend to me

PS: i play tank druid as main , its boring as fuck but its OP

[Deleted]

Why does it have to be soul shards though? Why can't destruction have burning embers back. Thematically it is much more interesting and better, if it's too much to ask make it a fucking glyph. You put all this effort into Mists making this resource to essentially scrap it.

[xskarma]

My reaction as a Warlock main:

Spoiler: 

Finally great again!

Dual Guardian Druid & Destro Warlock main. Not sure how to feel now. =/

[markos82]

Those developers in Blizz HQ are smoking some really powerful shit....

[moofie]

Love the changes to balance druids.

[Magistrate]

Why does it have to be soul shards though? Why can't destruction have burning embers back. Thematically it is much more interesting and better, if it's too much to ask make it a fucking glyph. You put all this effort into Mists making this resource to essentially scrap it.

Because fel magic uses souls. Embers sounds like it could just be fire magic, which would just be a Mage.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Love the changes to balance druids.

Is that sarcasm or are they actually doing something with balance druids?

[Cubcake]

Figured they would either
A) Make MoU like 10% reduction
B) Make MoU have a CD more along the lines of Empower Wards.

Guess I was wrong on both accounts lol. Oh well, I have no doubts we will be fine tho. Still hope the lower tuned tanks get a bump up to be on par with bears.

[Hugnomo]

Is that sarcasm or are they actually doing something with balance druids?

I think he meant "balance" the verb, not the spec...

[Deleted]

Mark of Ursol removed

Finally, please don't back off on this nerf Blizzard, Guardian are strong enough as is even without that ridiculous ability.

[markos82]

Finally, please don't back off on this nerf Blizzard, Guardian are strong enough as is even without that ridiculous ability.

Still not as strong as prot warriors....

[Ausr]

I said in the druid forum, they REALLY want us to want to love Maul for some reason.

[Odobisean]

Still not as strong as prot warriors....

Are you joking?

[Rioo]

Finally, please don't back off on this nerf Blizzard, Guardian are strong enough as is even without that ridiculous ability.

You don't fix guardian by making them terrible at mitigating magic, that just bad design. Instead of trying to bring all the tanks closer to each other you'll still have guardians way ahead of everyone else on 80% of the fights, and then they'll be terrible on 20%. All tanks should be close to each other, with all tanks being a bit stronger and weaker on some of the fights.

[Daedius]

I eagerly await all the QQ off Guardian Druids over this OP ability's removal...

[Deleted]

Still not as strong as prot warriors....

Did you miss the /s on this or?

As a Prot Warrior myself every Guardian Druid i have come across since this was announced i have just /mourn'd them, makes me feel like im not going to be playing a completly useless class in Tomb now.

[f3llyn]

Still not as strong as prot warriors....

Not sure if serious...

[Deleted]

You don't fix guardian by making them terrible at mitigating magic, that just bad design. Instead of trying to bring all the tanks closer to each other you'll still have guardians way ahead of everyone else on 80% of the fights, and then they'll be terrible on 20%. All tanks should be close to each other, with all tanks being a bit stronger and weaker on some of the fights.

Oh they'll be more than fine against magic damage, given their enormous health pool, frenzied regeneration, adaptive fur and whatever else they have. They'll just not be quite as brokenly overpowered as they are now. Quite frankly, they need more nerfs than this, but it's a great start.