Paladin: Judgments of the Pure Tuning - April 4, Patch 10.1 PTR - Mythic Plus Testing

[Stoy]

Paladin: Judgments of the Pure Tuning – April 4

With Judgment’s cast frequency increasing in patch 10.0.7, Judgments of the Pure has been overperforming as a PvP talent. In a hotfix being applied this upcoming Tuesday, the talent will only apply to the Paladin and no longer have its effect applicable to allies.

PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER

• Paladin
  
  • Judgments of the Pure (PvP Talent) now causes Judgment casts on an enemy to cleanse 1 Poison, Disease, and Magic effect they have caused on you (was allies within your aura).

Patch 10.1 PTR Mythic+ Testing - March 30th - April 3rd

Greetings!

Dragonflight Season 2 Mythic+ testing begins on PTR realms this weekend. The test period will begin Thursday March 30th at 10:00 PDT (13:00 EDT, 20:00 CEST), and end Monday April 3rd at 10:00 PDT (13:00 EDT, 20:00 CEST). Please note that the test period may be adjusted in the event of technical difficulties.

This weekend features the Vortex Pinnacle dungeon and our updated level 7 keystone affixes.

During the test period you’ll be able to acquire and customize Mythic Keystones by talking to the Keystone Vendor in Valdrakken, and the nearby Dungeon Teleports NPC will assist you with transportation.

• There are new affixes and adjusted affixes available for testing. Players can purchase scrolls from the keystone vendor to add to these to their keystone.
  
  • New Affix: Incorporeal – While in combat, incorporeal beings appear and attempt to destabilize players with spells that reduce their damage and healing done. Incorporeal beings are susceptible to all forms of crowd control.
  • New Affix: Afflicted – While in combat, Afflicted Souls appear that seek the aid of players. Afflicted Souls spawn with poison, curse, and disease afflictions. Removing any of these afflictions or restoring the spirit to full health causes it to despawn. Fail to remove their afflictions in time will inflict players with a negative status effect.
  • New Affix: Entangling – While in combat, entangling vines snare players.
  • Updated Affix: Explosive – Fewer Explosive Orbs spawn, but they now have substantially higher health.
• The following affixes have been retired for Dragonflight Season 2:
  
  • Quaking
  • Grievous
  • Volcanic

We’re looking for feedback on keystone combinations:

Keystone Level 4 Affixes:

• Spiteful
• Sanguine
• Bursting
• Bolstering
• Raging

Keystone Level 7 Affixes:

• Incorporeal
• Afflicted
• Entangling
• Explosive
• Storming

Affix Refresh Goals

• One of our primary goals is to highlight different forms of player utility week over week. The hope is that different classes will shine with their ability to neutralize the week's affix.
• We want to reduce the cognitive load we're putting on players with affixes with the removal of the seasonal affix and the pacing and design of our new affixes. The intent is to slow down the rate that these affixes trigger and to tone down the required response from players dealing with them.
• Like dungeons in Dragonflight, we are taking the opportunity to review and refresh affixes more often between seasons.
• We encourage players to play with different combinations of the level 4 and level 7 affix tiers. Please give feedback on unfair combinations that you come across in testing.

We look forward to hearing your feedback!

[Ahraa]

As if holy paladin was already underperforming, let us hit them with another nerf. Lololol rip me.

[Elepenke]

As a ret paladin this felt insane and perhaps needs a nerf. I think this nerf is not the right way to nerf as it makes people not take it at all. I would rather nerf it with a timer like can only occur 1 time in x seconds.

Also its easy to nerf stuff, but It would be nice if there can be some more pvp talents added. It's like 6 talents that are all nerfed into the ground in 2 weeks time. I understand its easy to nerf things into the ground when people whine about it, but gosh atleast give things some thought.

[Aggressive]

As if holy paladin was already underperforming, let us hit them with another nerf. Lololol rip me.

Welcome to World of Warcraft, where the devs try so hard to give the impression they know about balance, but know very little (If anything at all) about the classes in WoW. This game is shit show of disappointments. As soon as they see you having fun on any class, it catches a nerf.

[kevincuomo]

The new affix's are DOG... please just let us have fun and play the game and pull lots of mobs... this is just cringe.

[LordVargK]

The new affix's are DOG... please just let us have fun and play the game and pull lots of mobs... this is just cringe.

I disagree. They sound really, really fun.
All classes having to use more of their toolkits IS playing the game. Better than being forced to stop casting every 15 seconds or so. Pulling lots of mobs just leads to very clear meta comps, affixes give more classes the ability to shine.

Kinda worried about classes with no cleanse (etc) effects though.

[Aggressive]

I disagree. They sound really, really fun.
All classes having to use more of their toolkits IS playing the game. Better than being forced to stop casting every 15 seconds or so. Pulling lots of mobs just leads to very clear meta comps, affixes give more classes the ability to shine.

Kinda worried about classes with no cleanse (etc) effects though.

I disagree. I think putting stupid affixes in like this just make groups pick certain classes for groups and say to hell with the other classes. Cause you know Blizzard doesn't already have a issue with certain classes being FOTM already.

[ONCHEhap]

Judgments of the Pure did need some looking into, but this makes it genuinely worthless sadly

[kevincuomo]

I disagree. They sound really, really fun.
All classes having to use more of their toolkits IS playing the game. Better than being forced to stop casting every 15 seconds or so. Pulling lots of mobs just leads to very clear meta comps, affixes give more classes the ability to shine.

Kinda worried about classes with no cleanse (etc) effects though.

I mean when you are doing 15 keys its not a big deal but when you are doing keys high enough that most things one shot its not fun to deal with boring mechanics like this

[Biomega]

The problem, as so often, is that Blizzard fundamentally doesn't understand what the issue is with affixes: that they don't add challenge in a good way, and that they aren't FUN. They seem to be under the impression that people's problem with affixes is that they're the same ones we've had for years - but that's not it. The underlying design philosophy is what's flawed.

M+ already has a mechanism for increasing challenge, and that's its internal scaling. A +20 key would be PLENTY challenging for people even WITHOUT affixes, yet somehow they seem to be under the impression that adding some bullshit overlaps is what makes things spicy, rather than utterly annoying.

Perhaps its Blizzard's stubborn refusal to abandon tradition that's at play. They came up with the idea of M+ having these kinds of affixes when they originally made the system, and now they're sticking with it. They never seriously think about whether or not parts of that system might have outlived their usefulness and need to be replaced, and instead hold on to the base design like a limpet to a rock. And as a result, years down the line we still have the terrible key/depletion system, we still have annoying-AF affixes, we still have all the bad things about M+ because they think they had an idea once and that was great and it's only a question of fine-tuning it.

THAT'S NOT HOW GOOD DESIGN SHOULD OPERATE.

What were the most successful affixes, bar none, in the history of M+? Some of the seasonal affixes, namely Awakened and Encrypted. What's their proposed solution? Get rid of seasonal affixes entirely. Are they really THAT out of touch?

People don't WANT annoyances. That's anti-fun design. They want COOL SHIT. They want things that change the way a dungeon plays out in a POSITIVE way, not be forced to jump through hoops negatively because they get poked in the eye with a sharp stick of some flavor or another every few seconds.

Why is that so difficult to get across. Why does Blizzard have to so stubbornly cling to these fundamentally anti-fun design choices. Why do they think that annoying people is a going to make them want to play more.

It boggles the mind.

[Zka]

The problem, as so often, is that Blizzard fundamentally doesn't understand what the issue is with affixes: that they don't add challenge in a good way, and that they aren't FUN. They seem to be under the impression that people's problem with affixes is that they're the same ones we've had for years - but that's not it. The underlying design philosophy is what's flawed.
...
People don't WANT annoyances. That's anti-fun design. They want COOL SHIT. They want things that change the way a dungeon plays out in a POSITIVE way, not be forced to jump through hoops negatively because they get poked in the eye with a sharp stick of some flavor or another every few seconds.
...
Why is that so difficult to get across. Why does Blizzard have to so stubbornly cling to these fundamentally anti-fun design choices. Why do they think that annoying people is a going to make them want to play more.

+100
All affixes are crap, but some are crappier than others.

In general wow PVE has been going in the wrong direction since Cata. They keep adding complexity and increase the amount of things you must react to. It's way overboard now.

[Jervaise]

+100
All affixes are crap, but some are crappier than others.

In general wow PVE has been going in the wrong direction since Cata. They keep adding complexity and increase the amount of things you must react to. It's way overboard now.

I agree. I think they are doing anything they can to stop players from pulling more mobs. Increased amount of spells from every monster, aoe caps hard and soft, affixes that discourage you from pulling more etc...

I think they are afraid of the wow engine with big pulls and lag + fps drops.

[neescher]

I disagree. They sound really, really fun.

Fun for who? Certainly not for the healer. Also, certainly not for classes like warrior who have no hard cc and no dispels, good luck finding a group as something like dps warrior in an afflicted/incorporeal week. It's already hard now, but gonna be near impossible in s2.

All classes having to use more of their toolkits IS playing the game.

Would be true, if not for two things...

a) Not all classes have the same toolkit. You talk about otherwise just having "clear meta comps", and you think these affixes will make it better? Will 100% be the complete opposite of what you hope. There will be comps and specs for these weeks that will objectively be better than others, and I will guarantee pug leaders will just look at what the pros are doing and inviting and copying it.


b) For every single one of these affixes, just like almost every other affix in the game, people can just choose to ignore it and let the healer deal with the consequences. Who do you think suffers the most when everyone gets a 100% haste debuff? Tank takes more damage because can't use as many defensives -> healer has to fix it. Pull is alive considerably longer because damage is low -> healer has to fix it by using more CDs. Same for a 50% dps/heal reduction. No dps cares about overall dps in m+, they just care about being on top. If they get a 50% dps debuff, they don't care as long as the other dps have the same debuff. Healer has to fix it.

[Alanar]

Well thanks for making the pvp talent worthless.
There is maybe 2 decent pvp talents left, how boring.

[Qnubi]

I disagree. I think putting stupid affixes in like this just make groups pick certain classes for groups and say to hell with the other classes. Cause you know Blizzard doesn't already have a issue with certain classes being FOTM already.

I would actually change the synonym to FOTS, because the meta is always stable for one season, and then gets changed for the next.

[Sezerek]

In general wow PVE has been going in the wrong direction since Cata.

So they are doing it wrong for 12,5years in a row and you are still here, I think that is saying more about you than their handling of the pve section.

[Loveliest]

I disagree. They sound really, really fun.
All classes having to use more of their toolkits IS playing the game. Better than being forced to stop casting every 15 seconds or so. Pulling lots of mobs just leads to very clear meta comps, affixes give more classes the ability to shine.

Kinda worried about classes with no cleanse (etc) effects though.

All classes who. It's gonna be up to the tank and healer like usual. I can see some much narrower meta on this front (pala tank can cleanse). If you think your dps will pick up a dispel, heal a mob or kill an explosive...

[Lochton]

People are still going to whine about Paladins, even though they aren't the huge threat in PvP after the speedy nerf.

- - - Updated - - -

In general wow PVE has been going in the wrong direction since Cata. They keep adding complexity and increase the amount of things you must react to. It's way overboard now.

No? WoW PvE is smoothening out things now but before cata, that was dull most of the examples, and hardly supporting a 4th raiding tier nowadays if we had kept to it.

[LordVargK]

All classes who. It's gonna be up to the tank and healer like usual. I can see some much narrower meta on this front (pala tank can cleanse). If you think your dps will pick up a dispel, heal a mob or kill an explosive...

Good DPS will do exactly that. Same as they do now (think of raging affix). Of course shitty DPS players will still be shit.

- - - Updated - - -

Fun for who? Certainly not for the healer. Also, certainly not for classes like warrior who have no hard cc and no dispels, good luck finding a group as something like dps warrior in an afflicted/incorporeal week. It's already hard now, but gonna be near impossible in s2.

Especially the healer. Explosive becomes an DPS affix and I love having more things to do than DPS while having downtime.
I share your worries about warrior, though.

Would be true, if not for two things...

a) Not all classes have the same toolkit. You talk about otherwise just having "clear meta comps", and you think these affixes will make it better? Will 100% be the complete opposite of what you hope. There will be comps and specs for these weeks that will objectively be better than others, and I will guarantee pug leaders will just look at what the pros are doing and inviting and copying it.


b) For every single one of these affixes, just like almost every other affix in the game, people can just choose to ignore it and let the healer deal with the consequences. Who do you think suffers the most when everyone gets a 100% haste debuff? Tank takes more damage because can't use as many defensives -> healer has to fix it. Pull is alive considerably longer because damage is low -> healer has to fix it by using more CDs. Same for a 50% dps/heal reduction. No dps cares about overall dps in m+, they just care about being on top. If they get a 50% dps debuff, they don't care as long as the other dps have the same debuff. Healer has to fix it.

Sure, but outside of the VERY high end players don't switch classes each week. So if every class has some week they excel in, they will find groups in other weeks too, since other players are in the same boat.

b) just sounds like a bad player concern. And at a certain difficulty players will die if they ignore mechanics, regardless of healer performance. So every decent DPS will play the mechanics.
Also healers love it when they get something to do. The perfect group is a boring group.

- - - Updated - - -

I mean when you are doing 15 keys its not a big deal but when you are doing keys high enough that most things one shot its not fun to deal with boring mechanics like this

There aren't really that many mechanics that prevent you from doing the new affixes. If you have at least some kind of awareness, that is.
Of course for a tunnel-visioning DPS player everything is an annoiance, because "muh DPS".

[neescher]

Sure, but outside of the VERY high end players don't switch classes each week. So if every class has some week they excel in, they will find groups in other weeks too, since other players are in the same boat.

My point isn't about high end players swapping characters to match the affix, my point is that for most pugs, people just won't invite the "wrong" classes that week.
"They will find groups in other weeks" is a bad take, because people want to play the game every week not just on some selected weeks.

b) just sounds like a bad player concern. And at a certain difficulty players will die if they ignore mechanics, regardless of healer performance. So every decent DPS will play the mechanics.

It absolutely is a bad player concern. But for people that mostly pug keys, it absolutely is reality. I'm not saying it happens in every group of course, but it happens often enough that healing is less and less fun. I literally had groups disband where I did >95% of explosives, and the dps players would rather deplete the key than help with explosives. Yes, it's rare to be this extreme, but if things like that happen 1-3 times per week pugging keys, then it just sucks.

Then they talk about changing affixes that make the healer's life harder, and they go and add 3 new affixes that make the healer's life harder, because bad dps can choose yet again to just ignore the entire mechanic and let the healer handle it.

I mained healer for about 14 out of the 18 years I played wow, and this season I just stopped healing after I pugged all my 20s, because I just didn't enjoy it any more. I not only didn't enjoy it any more, it made me go "oh man, fuck that shit" when I opened my vault on Wednesday morning and looked at the week's affixes. Week after week. Then I logged on my alt and played dps for the week, even skipping the m+ vault on my healers.

Also healers love it when they get something to do. The perfect group is a boring group.

That's the thing about healing in modern wow... even in the perfect group you always have to do something as healer. You're expected to dps in downtime, but especially in this season you still have your healing checks, like Raging Tempest or Hyrja. And on trash, even on the best pugs where ppl interrupt/cc/etc, if there are big pulls there will be a lot of damage. It might be different if you're a very top end team, where every pull is 100% planned and rehearsed, but in pugs there'll always be pulls where some amount of healing is required.

"The perfect group is a boring group", I disagree with that. Good groups, where dps and tank actually know what to do, are far more enjoyable to me than chaotic pugs.