Battle for Azeroth - Discussion/Changes ALPHA

[Geodude07]

So....Brewmaster changes: Wowhead link

Stagger is 75% more effective for 6 sec.

But....

Stagger has been changed to:

a portion of Physical damage based on your Agility, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at 20% effectiveness.


That sounds very strange to me without solid numbers. This seems like it has a high potential for spiraling out of control, starting too weak or just....I don't know. Being a mess to manage. Perhaps I am just not thinking about it in the right way, but it seems like needless complication.

[keqe]

So....Brewmaster changes: Wowhead link

Stagger is 75% more effective for 6 sec.

But....

Stagger has been changed to:

a portion of Physical damage based on your Agility, instead taking it over 10 sec. Affects magical attacks at 20% effectiveness.


That sounds very strange to me without solid numbers. This seems like it has a high potential for spiraling out of control, starting too weak or just....I don't know. Being a mess to manage. Perhaps I am just not thinking about it in the right way, but it seems like needless complication.

It is part of the weird tank scaling change they are making in BfA. In BfA armor is less effective against mobs that are "stronger". The armor formula since vanilla has been static. (armor/(armor+8164))*100. The "constant" changing between expansions because of level (and stat squish). However the constant is the same for the whole expansion.

In BfA they intend to change that constant based on the "strength" of the mobs. I guess it means the constant is higher for a +15 M+ mob than for a +10 m+ mob. Same kind of for raids. Same between raid tiers or possibly HC-> Mythic. For example that 8164 could be the constant for +10 key mob. But for +20 key mob it would be 16000, making your armor much worse.

What they hope to achieve with this is that without suitable gear tanks get smashed. I guess they somehow feel it wasn't great tanks mostly didn't need gear during progress. So this might force gearing tanks more.

But because armor isn't a major thing for monks (like in BfA every AM is armor modifier now, and even block somehow scales like armor in BfA now), they had to change stagger to work in similar way. I think the tooltip is just inaccurate and it isn't just ever increasing stagger from start. It has the same scaling as armor and you are just playing catch up with new content.


Edit:

Tested stagger a bit on a random outdoor mob. Level 110 and 197 ilvl. Staggered ~59% of the melee hit with IsB+HT. Quite sad to be honest.

It seems even though HT is worded like IsB it isn't a multiplier. It is still flat 10% increase to stagger.

[Sinorita]

MW Talent:
Requires level 100
Rising Sun Kick heals all allies with your Renewing Mist, Enveloping Mist, or Essence Font for (20% of Spell power), and extends those effects by 2 sec.

[keqe]

Decided to test stagger with a lower level mob. And it confirms that stagger is different against different power of mobs. 85% stagger against lvl 90 goat as lvl 110.

Now after looking more into it HT is working very weirdly. Against same level target it was 10% more stagger flat. Against these lower lvl mobs it was around 6%. In addition to that it actually lowered the total damage taken somewhat. However this damage reduction wasn't present against the same level target. Ironskin Brew didn't reduce overall damage taken so it isn't about some new mechanic making stagger damage reduction against "easier" content.

[Gorsameth]

Could be some weird interaction with the new formula and its scaling factors.
Did you report it?

[Geodude07]

It is part of the weird tank scaling change they are making in BfA. In BfA armor is less effective against mobs that are "stronger". The armor formula since vanilla has been static. (armor/(armor+8164))*100. The "constant" changing between expansions because of level (and stat squish). However the constant is the same for the whole expansion.

In BfA they intend to change that constant based on the "strength" of the mobs. I guess it means the constant is higher for a +15 M+ mob than for a +10 m+ mob. Same kind of for raids. Same between raid tiers or possibly HC-> Mythic. For example that 8164 could be the constant for +10 key mob. But for +20 key mob it would be 16000, making your armor much worse.

What they hope to achieve with this is that without suitable gear tanks get smashed. I guess they somehow feel it wasn't great tanks mostly didn't need gear during progress. So this might force gearing tanks more.

But because armor isn't a major thing for monks (like in BfA every AM is armor modifier now, and even block somehow scales like armor in BfA now), they had to change stagger to work in similar way. I think the tooltip is just inaccurate and it isn't just ever increasing stagger from start. It has the same scaling as armor and you are just playing catch up with new content.


Edit:

Tested stagger a bit on a random outdoor mob. Level 110 and 197 ilvl. Staggered ~59% of the melee hit with IsB+HT. Quite sad to be honest.

It seems even though HT is worded like IsB it isn't a multiplier. It is still flat 10% increase to stagger.

59% with HT and ISB? Jeeze....

I assume there are going to be things changed and added though. At least I hope so.

[dcc626]

59% with HT and ISB? Jeeze....

I assume there are going to be things changed and added though. At least I hope so.

stagger scaling with agi means getting upgrades might feel impactful. hard to tell what things will feel like at 120 when you are on a starter geared 110.

[Rhaxus]

Bluepost just mentioned that the new scaling aims for a similar stagger experience as on live: 40% base, 70% with ironskin and they might put it on the character stat sheet now that the formula is more difficult to gauge

[keqe]

Bluepost just mentioned that the new scaling aims for a similar stagger experience as on live: 40% base, 70% with ironskin and they might put it on the character stat sheet now that the formula is more difficult to gauge

Sounds alright. I just wonder what is "appropriate" gear for certain content. Is it previous "level" gear? (HC gear for mythic?). Mythic gear for Mythic? With titanforging what even is suitable gear when gear levels fluxuate so much. Funny thing is that this system would be awesome but titanforging once again ruins everything.

Also, I doubt they can make character sheet tooltip which they suggested in the blue post make any real sense. At the very least I'd hope they release the exact formula how it scales with agility and how it scales with mob power. Then add some way to check the values from mobs in game so people can at very least napkin math stuff out if not even addon it. I doubt they can give all this info ingame without addon support without ovewhelming UI (at least with blizzard's standards as we know with tooltip/passive info pruning).

[Rhaxus]

@keqe at least the scaling troubles will be the same for all tanks now, so it should not be a reason for brewmasters to perform worse.

in terms of titanforging, it's reassuring to know that azerite armor pieces will not be able to roll higher, and i believe they mentioned that they want gear to be more content-relevant; e.g.: heroic gear should not be able to compete with mythic gear etc, that sounds like titanforging will not be a big factor any more

[keqe]

@keqe at least the scaling troubles will be the same for all tanks now, so it should not be a reason for brewmasters to perform worse.

in terms of titanforging, it's reassuring to know that azerite armor pieces will not be able to roll higher, and i believe they mentioned that they want gear to be more content-relevant; e.g.: heroic gear should not be able to compete with mythic gear etc, that sounds like titanforging will not be a big factor any more

True. The same scaling applies to all tanks. I was wondering about it in context of all tanks.

Titanforging might even be worse in BfA. 3 Azerite pieces that don't TF, weapon can only WF (+5/10), and titanforging should be more rare.

The azerite pieces won't help that much. Remember that in Legion we had 2 legendaries for most expansion which were static ilvl. And because they were extremely high ilvl they "carried" a bit if you had unlucky titanforging. (Not going to the legendary effect can of worms though). In BfA you have 3 "static" pieces but they are same/lower ilvl than your other pieces so TF from other pieces stands out more. So the 3 Azerite vs 2 Legendaries will probably be about neutral if not worse.

Weapon being only WF helps a bit. But it is just one item in context of agility scaling.

And third point of TF being more rare. It might help. Or it might just make it more frustrating when it is even more unreliable and the gap between lucky and unlucky widens. In legion you could at least somewhat expect multiple TF items between tiers for example. Rare TF and being more gear reliant can make TF even worse.

[luanfernando95]

Someone has an aura or something to track the new stagger %?

[Deleted]

There is a lot weakauras on wago or monk's discord channel sure some ppl are spreading them when they can

[Sabajle]

Just get on monks dc

[Felarion]

How do you guys feel about Windwalkers in BFA ? I just recieved Beta yesterday and decided to try it, and tbh i dont notice that much of a difference comparing to legion. So far for me, most noticible thing is lack of stacking fists of fury buff and artifact strike. And of course ghosts summoning is slower due to GCD, but considering all the bad things i watched about this change i must admit, that is not that for me during my monk gameplay.

[Deleted]

How do you guys feel about Windwalkers in BFA ? I just recieved Beta yesterday and decided to try it, and tbh i dont notice that much of a difference comparing to legion. So far for me, most noticible thing is lack of stacking fists of fury buff and artifact strike. And of course ghosts summoning is slower due to GCD, but considering all the bad things i watched about this change i must admit, that is not that for me during my monk gameplay.

I like it, i am gonna be one in BFA. I especially like how Bok reduces the cd of FOF and RSK. I won't be missing the loss of the artifact since i was a druid in legion.

[Nfinitii]

How do you guys feel about Windwalkers in BFA ? I just recieved Beta yesterday and decided to try it, and tbh i dont notice that much of a difference comparing to legion. So far for me, most noticible thing is lack of stacking fists of fury buff and artifact strike. And of course ghosts summoning is slower due to GCD, but considering all the bad things i watched about this change i must admit, that is not that for me during my monk gameplay.

Gameplay is def feels a little different, I messed around w/ our nrg tier and EE feels terrible, the other two options felt much better imo. BoK change helps w/ not having strike of the windlord, it does seem to do some weird stuff w/ wdp though where it can make it line up weird w/ fof or rsk. I noticed sometimes where I would bok and end up taking fof or rsk off cd the same time wdp came off cd and it ended up making everything clunky so I started holding bok to make sure everything lined up better. This also happened when I thought I still had time to tiger palm after bok before rsk or fof comes off cd and end up not b/c bok reduces their cd. I don't think it feels as smooth as live though.

[Usagi Senshi]

How do you guys feel about Windwalkers in BFA ? I just recieved Beta yesterday and decided to try it, and tbh i dont notice that much of a difference comparing to legion. So far for me, most noticible thing is lack of stacking fists of fury buff and artifact strike. And of course ghosts summoning is slower due to GCD, but considering all the bad things i watched about this change i must admit, that is not that for me during my monk gameplay.

Definitely faster and smoother than it is on live atm. Beta feels like you have a better version of Katsuos on at all times.

[Deleted]

Heavy Handed Strikes has been changed, it seems. From a stun to a 20% damage debuff, stacking 3 times.

[shise]

Only I wish this was all 2 months ahead... now it is summer, most of us have way more free time, the launch date is right about semester start.
Gladly to at least be on the beta this time to check the things I would otherwise waste time on later on... pretty much deciding what class to level first and if I want to buy the Dino, etc.