Patch 3.2.2a, Mount Changes, Blue posts

[Boubouille]

Patch 3.2.2a spell comparison
The patch deployed yesterday on live realms updated the tooltips of most spells hotfixed in the past days, time for a little comparison!

Make sure you check the Recent In-Game Fixes - September 2009 for more details on this changes.

Faction Champions (Damage reduced in 10 and 25-man normal modes)

• Vampiric Touch - Causes 12375 Shadow damage over 15 sec to your target. (Down from 20250 damage)
• Arcane Blast - Blasts the target with energy, dealing 6013 to 6987 Arcane damage. (Down from 7863 to 9137 damage)
• Arcane Barrage now deals 4750 to 5250 Arcane damage. (Down from 6650 to 7350 damage)
• Unstable Affliction now deals 11565 damage over 15 sec (Down from 13875) and causes 20817 to 24183 damage if dispelled. (Down from 24975 to 29025 damage)
• Hellfire now deals 2500 fire damage to all nerby enemies every 1 sec. (Down from 5500 damage)
• Explosive Shot now deals 1813 to 2187 Fire damage. (Down from 3173 to 3827 Fire damage)
• Aimed Shot now increases ranged damage by 1750. (Down from 3000)
• Eviscerate now causes 4375 to 5625 Physical damage. (Down from 5688 to 7312 Physical damage)
• Judgement of Command now causes 3325 to 3675 Holy damage. (Down from 4750 to 5250 Holy damage)

Twins Valkyrs

• Twin's Pact - The Twin's Pact heals for 50% of their total HP. (Up from 20%)

Koralon the Flame Watcher

• Burning Breath now has a 6 sec cooldown to prevent him from casting it immediately after Blazing Embers.

Patch 3.2.2 Mount Changes Confirmed
The change I reported yesterday is now confirmed and apparently the price of the riding skills in Dalaran has been hotfixed to match the lowered price in Hellfire.

You guys are correct, we reduced the expert riding skill price in 3.2.2 to 225g. We also changed the faction discounts for the riding skill vendors in Honor Hold and Thrallmar to use Stormwind and Orgrimmar faction.

There are a couple reasons we made this change. First off, we wanted expert riding to be available to more people at level 60. 600g just did not seem like a reasonable expectation for most level 60 players to have when they roll into Hellfire Peninsula. Especially after purchasing your level 60 skills. The second change, regarding the factions just made a lot more sense this way since you will not have any Thrallmar or Honor Hold faction when you enter Hellfire.

Finally, I want to apologize for this change not making the patch notes. We strive to get every change we make into the notes but this one somehow slipped by. Once again, my apologies on that, but hopefully the lower price will help make up for it.

Blue posts

Theorycrafting and game balance
Sometimes players aren't seeing the right numbers. Players put a lot of faith in simulations, target dummy tests, data base packages, theorycrafting and simple fights. None of those sources of information are totally invalid. None of them tell the whole story either. Often players are comparing apples and oranges because they are considering a fight which is very good for another class or comparing themselves to an overpowered class who has already gotten nerfs (that do not show up until the next patch). Players also tend to downplay any fight with adds ("trash doesn't matter") even though there are very few single-target boss fights. Players tend to downplay half of the fights as "gimmick fights" which leaves only Patchwerk and maybe Golemagg.

Often, player sense of perspective is wrong. The classes are closer than they have been at any time in the history of WoW. Could they be better? Absolutely. But when we read these threads that talk about a class problem (even low dps) as being the Worst Thing Ever That Has Always Been This Way, they sort of lose some of their credibility. There are some specs who we see as legitimately not making it into PvE groups very often (such as Frost mages and Demo locks) and some specs that just don't feel very viable in PvP (such as Prot warriors or Fire Mages). Many of the other "am being sat" anecdotes are overblown.

Often, we have made a fix and players just haven't seen it yet because the next build isn't out. It is very telling right now that there are a lot of "I logged into the game, tried hitting something for 5 seconds and didn't notice a dps increase" threads. What we deal with a lot are trends, and trends can take a lot of time to emerge.

Sometimes we even agree something is a problem, but A) aren't sure how we want to fix it yet, B) think that an upcoming change will fix the problem, or C) are just focused on other problems at the moment. You can ask why we won't at least acknowledge a problem even if we have no immediate plans to fix it. But ask yourself if you would be one of those people who would post "Why won't you fix it if you know it's a problem?" (Source)

Harvest Festival and Violet Proto-Drake
Harvest Festival and Pilgrim's Bounty are two different holidays.

That said, the point of What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been is to experience all the holidays in its requirements, so we won't likely change it to be an 8 of 9 situation, and Pilgrim's Bounty is currently planned to remain off the meta achievement. (Source)

New "buff" drums/scrolls in 3.2.2
As a few players have pointed out, the reason we gave up back-up versions of Kings, Gift and Fort is because those affect the health of the tank. It is difficult to balance how hard bosses can hit when tank health varies with and without those buffs (again generally talking hard modes here for appropriate geared groups). There aren't many situations where Bloodlust / Heroism will absolutely make the difference between making or failing a dps check. It can be really advantageous in some situations though, such as blowing up a faction champions healer quickly.

Offering a drum (or whatever) version of BL / Heroism isn't totally off the table, but as we've said before, we don't want to have to go to Shadow Protection or Spirit consumables or whatever. (Source)

[color=#2459FF]Shaman
Chain Lightning
We don't want shamans to just push CL in all situations. We don't think that will be the case though. If you're a very sophisticated shaman and want to cycle in CL sometimes against single targets for a marginal but legitimate dps increase, there is nothing at all wrong with that.

I think some of our best class designs come out when a mediocre player can get X performance out of the class with a simple rotation, but an exceptional players can coax slightly > X damage by doing a more complex rotation. (Source)

[diabolikal]

Overall good changes it seems.. Except maybe the 50% heal thing. Has anyone else noticed Drums of Forgotten Kings (8% all stats) overwriting Blessing of Sanctuary (10% STA & STR)?

[Deleted]

The Twin's Pact buff is understandable, seeing how you could let multiple pacts through in heroic-10 for example and still beat the enrage timer. Wondering about the champion damage reduction in normal modes though.

Also:

Arcane Barrage now deals 11565 damage over 15 sec (Down from 13875) and causes 20817 to 24183 damage if dispelled. (Down from 24975 to 29025 damage)

Sounds like Unstable Affliction rather than Arcane Barrage to me. :P
PS. WTB dot with UA effect for Arcane Barrage.

[KandyCane]

Wondering about the champion damage reduction in normal modes though.

This is most likely to prevent some of the setups to be nearly impossible to do.

With the warlock's Hellfire ticking for 5.5k every -second-, the melee will get ripped apart if they're not paying attention, or got aggro from any of the other mobs.

That's the only one I think is really needed though, but the other nerfs are going to make it a bit easier to heal.


As for the Twin buff, I think it was really needed for the same reason as above. People could ignore the heal completely, and still make it without any troubles.

[rainCZ]

lol nerfs, except Twins

[bg]

I got excited thinking this was a (much needed) nerf to FC hard mode Hurray for randomness.

[Delever]

ummmmmm..... holy nerf?

[Maneken]

Judgement of Command now causes 3325 to 3675 Holy damage. (Down from 4750 to 5250 Holy damage
Lol Lol
Some mean elite pala mob again accidently kill some with seal of command, so Blizzard needs to nerf that
Imo only lock mob can be tricky in fight, hellfire spam.

[Offsprngr]

I'm just wondering why the Unstable Affliction nerf? Destro is OP right now, not affli.

[Shagrat]

I'm just wondering why the Unstable Affliction nerf? Destro is OP right now, not affli.

Erm, did you even read it completely? The UA nerf was to the Faction Champion warlock ability, not the player ability.

[Jakome]

Wow, I skipped over the bolded "Faction Champions" and thought the nerfs were to *player* abilities myself. I was sitting here, wondering--when the hell did any warlock ever use Hellfire? You just don't use it anymore unless you're trying to suicide. Does it really need a nerf?

Then I realized it didn't apply to player abilities at all, just the ones for the ToC reg/heroic.

[Offsprngr]

Erm, did you even read it completely? The UA nerf was to the Faction Champion warlock ability, not the player ability.

I just woke up. :-X

[Calaba]

Damn, and there was me thinking our warlocks had suddenly become pro when they survived 25-man faction champs the other night. This kinda explains it :

[bbr]

There are a couple reasons we made this change. First off, we wanted expert riding to be available to more people at level 60. 600g just did not seem like a reasonable expectation for most level 60 players to have when they roll into Hellfire Peninsula. Especially after purchasing your level 60 skills. The second change, regarding the factions just made a lot more sense this way since you will not have any Thrallmar or Honor Hold faction when you enter Hellfire.

This strikes me as very strange.

Back in vanilla at level 60, the epic mount skill cost you 1000g iirc.
so now flying is cheaper than the epic mount skill used to be :P

[FireBorne]

This strikes me as very strange.

Back in vanilla at level 60, the epic mount skill cost you 1000g iirc.
so now flying is cheaper than the epic mount skill used to be :P

Not this shit again...Blizzard obviously wants ppl to ding 60 then immediately buy riding skill, this isnt vanilla where there was nothing to do but grind gold for the BEST riding skill atm.

[Deleted]

I'm just wondering why the Unstable Affliction nerf? Destro is OP right now, not affli.

You just lost the internet.

[Pokchop]

This strikes me as very strange.

Back in vanilla at level 60, the epic mount skill cost you 1000g iirc.
so now flying is cheaper than the epic mount skill used to be :P

You didn't have 1000g when you dinged 60.

[Maneken]

You didn't have 1000g when you dinged 60.

So you didnt have mount until you grind up 1k golds.
Mount then isnt something which were given by default.
Bu now its almost oposite.

[bbr]

You didn't have 1000g when you dinged 60.

Actually, you're correct, I didn't have 1000g, I had about 3000g when I dinged 60.
Smart use of the Auction house mechanics. Mining + skinning.
And while that wasn't my first character, at the time it was my first and only character on this server.

[negative432]

So you didnt have mount until you grind up 1k golds.
Mount then isnt something which were given by default.
Bu now its almost oposite.

the best mount now is 5000g plus the 1000g to use it in northrend. so really whats changed?