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  1. #1

    Consider's quick thoughts on 4.0.6

    Consider is the guy who runs the main posts on EJ for both, Frost and UH dps specs and if you're wondering why nothing has been said about the recent changes coming in patch 4.0.6, its because he's been busy with irl issues. He did however make a post on his blog with some pretty interesting observations...


    "This week has just been killing me, and I promise some in-depth writing/math this weekend, but to answer some of the questions I’m seeing asked a lot, I figured I would throw up this quick post. I hate making statements without support, but I do promise I’m fully confident of all the following, and simply don’t have the time to get into the “why’s” now, although, as said, Saturday and/or Sunday, it will definitely be done:


    -DW Unholy is undoubtedly dead. No question, and hopefully no explanation needed.

    -DnD is still a fundamental part of our Unholy single target rotation; in fact, it’s a larger dps gain than ever. Mastery and Rage of Rivendare see to it. Speaking of…

    -Unholy mastery is still bad. As bad as it was? No, of course not, but worse than crit/expertise, which is all that matters – it means we’ll avoid it as much as ever. The core issue is the ghoul; if, theoretically, it affected him, or if, theoretically, our ghoul didn’t exist, the stat would be perfectly desirable. As is, it isn’t… not to mention the DC/RoR nerfs coinciding at the same time don’t really help.

    -Our Frost AoE dps got nerfed, precisely how it needed to be done – with no affect on single target performance. A+.

    -Our 2H Frost single-target dps got a huge buff; enough to make it worth looking into, although I think it should still fall a percent or two behind the other specs… a minor gap, in the scheme of things, but enough for min-maxers to ignore it all the same.

    -Our Unholy AoE dps is more or less unchanged. The new mastery plus Virulence basically balance out the loss of the old mastery and the reduction in ghoul dps.

    -Our Unholy single-target DPS got hit, and rather hard at that. DC nerfed by 10%, SI/DT nerfed by 20%, RoR nerfed by 20%, Unholy Might nerfed by 50%, disease damage nerfed by ~10%, the Magic Suppression nerf, and so on… yeah. The new mastery and the Runic Corruption buff don’t even begin to outweigh all of that. There’s much to be said about this, but I would argue Blizzard slightly overdid it, and will support that position with some maths, as promised, later. Did we need a slight nerf? Yeah, definitely. UM, SI, and DT would have probably been sufficient on their own. The DC and RoR changes on top of it was just unnecessary, and pushes the pendulum of balance to the other end of the spectrum.

    -Magic Suppression 3/3 is essentially a must now… which really, really sucks, since with the RC change, we would actually like a point in RPM. Perhaps it will be worth drawing from IBT, but I’m not certain yet. Whatever else, say hello to 0 choice in our spec once again, beyond that one point floating in t1/2! Would have loved to see the PvE applications of Death’s Advance as well. Alas.

    Anyways, off to crash, but just some minor things I wished to address."

  2. #2
    Very interesting. I was worried about this exact thing honestly.

  3. #3
    Stood in the Fire Huckfealing's Avatar
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    hope to see some math soon, cause I was not expecting it to be so drastic, but he makes a good point that the drastic "Nerfs" where way over done.

  4. #4
    I find it odd that mastery is still worse than expertise.

    Of course, blizzard could just upscale it a bit and all will be well.

  5. #5
    Stood in the Fire Huckfealing's Avatar
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    We can hope Kerwyn, i mean at this point there is alot of conflicting math that is being stated, but I get a overwhelming feeling the more I think about it that unholy dk's have a big hit incomming, so im going to say that somthing has to be reverted, or somthing has to be buffed. Time will tell.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Docter Feel Good View Post
    We can hope Kerwyn, i mean at this point there is alot of conflicting math that is being stated, but I get a overwhelming feeling the more I think about it that unholy dk's have a big hit incomming, so im going to say that somthing has to be reverted, or somthing has to be buffed. Time will tell.
    Well, the single target nerf was defiantly justified and if you disagree then I must ask what game you've been playing.

    That said, the easy way to fix unholy DPS if the nerf was too much is to make mastery better until it's in a good spot, or just revert RoR to live numbers.

  7. #7
    Stood in the Fire Huckfealing's Avatar
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    I agree it was justified, but 5% and the death coil nerf was enough i would think, not the pet and RoR. Time will tell if these are changed though

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Docter Feel Good View Post
    I agree it was justified, but 5% and the death coil nerf was enough i would think, not the pet and RoR. Time will tell if these are changed though
    No, the pet had to be nerfed. It helps make unholy damage more player based, and was pretty ridiculous for pvp. RoR change was out of left field imo, and the really low mastery is still a not that good combined with the DC and strength nerf.

    [11:50:45] Earthmender Duarn says: Shamanistic healing is a complex art. You can't just chain heal all day.

  9. #9
    Stood in the Fire Huckfealing's Avatar
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    sorry I put that in the wrong order, but, all these nerfs are a bit strong. but i feel that the pet nerf was not needed, get some resil and a decent opponent who is smart, and the pet may be powerful, but not extremely OP as so many claim it to be. But even if it was, ok, nerf it, it would of been a much safer and understandable route rather than doing, str nerf, pet nerf, and DC nerf.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Docter Feel Good View Post
    I agree it was justified, but 5% and the death coil nerf was enough i would think, not the pet and RoR. Time will tell if these are changed though
    This, except I would say even the pet nerfs were justified (and welcome, in the greater scheme of things).

    It's mainly RoR and Magic Suppression which I would consider utterly unnecessary/out of left field. Primarily the first (as the latter isn't that big of a deal, I suppose). It's quite senseless. If they were simply trying to bring our dps from Y to X, then I would argue it still would have been better, design wise, to just nerf SI/DT even more than they did, and leave RoR as is, allowing us to still wind up at the same number we're now going to be at, but with our ghoul more marginalized relative to our own damage. Would have helped heavily with stat scaling - mastery, crit, expertise would have all been further boosted, with haste and strength brought down a bit; in essence, all of the secondary stats would have been very competitive with each other (although, of course, you would still have winners/losers, but that's inevitable. They key thing is the difference between the best secondary stat and the worst secondary stat would have been maybe 15%, if that, whereas it's something like 300% at the moment!). The ghoul being as much of a third of our damage is still just too high; closer to 20-25% would be much more ideal and inline with the other pet-centric specs (who even have a mastery affecting their pet!).

    Or, alternatively, instead of the above, in place of touching RoR, nerf DnD on a single target (deals X damage, increased by Y% for each additional mob hit, up until Z mobs? Who knows. Many ways they could do it if they wished). Not only would that bring down our single target dps, it would also improve our playstyle, because there's no way DnD is intended for single target use. It's just plain odd!
    Last edited by Considerit; 2011-01-15 at 08:17 AM.

  11. #11
    Wouldn't the Unholy mechanics always favor haste by a huge margin though? It affects almost everything (which I guess crit also does, but it's bugged with the Ghoul afaik); Ghoul (lol 35-40% total damage) Gargoyle, white hits, Sudden Doom, and Death Coil/strikes due to it lowering Rune regen.

    I'm no math wiz, but a glance would seem to still favor haste far more than anything else.

    [11:50:45] Earthmender Duarn says: Shamanistic healing is a complex art. You can't just chain heal all day.

  12. #12
    I agree with what's been said, mostly. A few of the nerfs were seemingly random(Magic Suppression, lol?), but the DC and Ghoul nerfs were needed. Above all else, Ghoul nerf seems most justified to me. They were putting out far too much of the players' damage, and it was essentially free DPS.

    However often people say they need to "manage" their Ghoul, the truth is that they really, really don't. Pressing/binding DT instead of SS isn't hard, nor is it to make a /cast [@playerpet] Death Coil macro. Not only did it do insane damage, Ghouls could also (pretty much) ignore any and all raid mechanics. So, while every melee is moving out of fire/etcetc, Ghouls are just chilling behind the boss, giving the Unholy DK(s) free DPS. IMO, it's one of the main reasons Unholy is ahead on a lot of fights(also due to the fact that they're currently over-tuned.)

    On Chimaeron, for example(the best 'tank-n-spank' fight as of right now), I'm where I should be: About 5-10% behind out resident Unholy DK, with myself as Frost. On any fight that requires extensive movement, he, and our new Unholy trial, pull quite far ahead.


    Wow, that was quite a rant. I'm sure I've stated the same things multiple times, but whatever.
    TL;DR: Unholy nerfs were justified, but it looks as if it was nerfed TOO hard. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

  13. #13
    Pandaren Monk
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    Death coil needed a healing nerf rather than a dps nerf. the glyph of deaths embrace nerf is kind of over the top though. Other than that, if our damage is to low on the ptr, it'll be upped again.

  14. #14
    The nerf to death coil isn't because it needed a nerf, it's because it didn't need a buff and the new mastery is giving it one. I'm just glad that they nerfed it so little.

  15. #15
    I am Murloc! Roose's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shiira View Post
    The nerf to death coil isn't because it needed a nerf, it's because it didn't need a buff and the new mastery is giving it one. I'm just glad that they nerfed it so little.
    As frost, I am disappointed to lose some of what little DC did for me. It is really a nerf to other specs' DC.

    ---------- Post added 2011-01-16 at 02:40 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Pieterman View Post
    Death coil needed a healing nerf rather than a dps nerf. the glyph of deaths embrace nerf is kind of over the top though. Other than that, if our damage is to low on the ptr, it'll be upped again.
    While I will admit that the glyph was a bit op, I do not agree with them making it all but worthless. If the refunded RP was too much, which it was, just nerf that aspect of it. Refund 10 instead of 20 and do not make drastic changes. The change to 10 would have at least made it worth using still.

  16. #16
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    The glyph had to get a kick in the teeth, maybe it is a little to harsh but we shall see.

    I think the collective nerfs to UH are also a step to far, but I'm hoping that it won't be a HUGE amount and in time will be sloly tweaked to we're in the right place against other class's

  17. #17
    The Patient Sal's Avatar
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    The glyph was not meant to heal yourself like that. It was made to heal your pet. What it currently does is what's it's meant to do and perfectly fine.
    Quote Originally Posted by Uggz View Post
    /facepalm, assasination mastery increases poison damage, as far as i'm aware envenom doesn't count as poison damage

  18. #18
    I am Murloc! Roose's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sal View Post
    The glyph was not meant to heal yourself like that. It was made to heal your pet. What it currently does is what's it's meant to do and perfectly fine.
    Kind of beating a dead horse here, but I am curious if it will still refund RP when healing other DKs using Lich. I know it is nit picking, but if you have 2 DKs they could trade off. It would be kinda tough to coordinate, I guess. People would find ways to make it work though.

  19. #19
    The Patient Larcissa's Avatar
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    Nothing on Blood? Looking forward to seeing the stat weights for Blood in 4.0.6, I can forsee stamina and avoidance being more useful very soon

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Roose View Post
    Kind of beating a dead horse here, but I am curious if it will still refund RP when healing other DKs using Lich. I know it is nit picking, but if you have 2 DKs they could trade off. It would be kinda tough to coordinate, I guess. People would find ways to make it work though.
    It won't. On the PTR, Death's Embrace says something like, "When you Death Coil is used to heal your minion, you are refunded 20 RP." Looks like it'll only heal your specific ghoul, and nothing else.

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