patch 2.0.10 notes on the PTR

[Artega]

One could argue that dps warriors are in the same boat. If we're in tank gear than our DPS is only ok. If we're in DPS gear we don't generally last long when called upon to tank. Its the flexibility between fights that impresses me - or am I putting too much credit on druids after running with you, Arshes and company?

Technically pretty much every class capable of doing two different things is going to perform differently depending how they're geared. I guess Rogues, Hunters, Mages and other one-trick ponies (e.g. they can do DPS and DPS only, for the most part) don't vary too terribly much depending on their gear, but classes that can perform multiple roles (and this doesn't necessarily mean actual hybrids like Pallies, Shammies, and Druids) are going to perform differently based on what they're outfitted with. Like you said, a Warrior geared for DPS (which is going to be heavy in crit, hit, STR, and AGI at the cost of avoidance, STA, and possibly Armor) is going to squish only slightly less slowly than a kitty or rogue if they're called in to tank.

[ima_nerd]

The buffs that warriors bring are the same regardless of what they are doing. The fact that you need 2 warriors to have both the +health (which I think ima_nerd is not valuing enough) and +ap buffs (which is awesome) just means that they will certainly be useful. Add in the fact that prot warrior DPS has been vastly improved and I do not believe that the situation is as grim as you portray it.

I'm not undervaluing it, I just think they both pale in comparison to LotP/Imp LotP. Although, to be fair, with the changes to both CS and Imp BS (now improves CS), CS could pull ahead. A Prot Warrior not tanking compared to a Feral Druid not tanking is such a lopsided comparison it's ridiculous. Put in similar levels of gear, the Warrior won't have a chance at keeping up in DPS. For this very reason, prot Warriors need to be the endall, absolute best choice for a MT position. They give up more than Druids when speccing for tanking.

[Taelas]

Actually, I believe the number crunching shows that Battleshout increases DPS more than Leader of the Pack does. I don't have any hard numbers, though.

[Kevin]

Updated 2.0.10 Patch Notes

http://a.wirebrain.de/wow/notes/enUS/6442?diff=1

Red is removed, green is added at the link

Still don't know about a 10s cooldown on PoM, I've been convinced that nerfing that spell without other buffs really hurt priests. Shield needed help but I think the base mechanics of shields (PW:S and the pally bubble) are a bit flawed. If you have improved shield and ~1000 + healing you are looking at 1750 - 1800 damage shields. Is that good enough? I'm not for sure. Still no help for inner fire, or mana burn (without scaling it's a major joke now) or several of the other issues. Still the shadow priest nerfs that I don't get.

As you said a desperate attempt to make circle of healing better, but since it costs divine spirit that isn't easy to swallow. It is another instant cast heal, it is another way for the priest to stay alive in PvP, and help in PvE and 33% cheaper does help the efficiency. I'd really have to play with it though. It's another one of those skills where I'm not sure it's worth the opportunity costs of other talents to get.

I've got some other things to note:
Shaman:
# The bonus of the "Wrath of Air" totem now applies to healing spells as well.

Along with the change that was there before to clear casting are pretty big buffs to a shaman dedicated to healing (an 11/5/45 or 11/0/50 build). You can get 101 damage/healing from a totem now, as well as have clear casting procs on crit heals since clear casting is now ALL spell crits, not just a chance on an offensive spell cast. The clear casting change was a nice shift for the elemental shaman as well putting a high value on spell crit for them, but it gives a way to extend the mana pool they have more control over.

Warriors:
# Increased the health bonus from "Commanding Shout" by 50%.
# "Improved Battle Shout" talent renamed to "Commanding Presence" and now increases the health bonus from "Commanding Shout" in addition to increasing the melee attack power from "Battle Shout".

More buffs, and they took a good fury talent and made it even better.


No changes to the druids. Reading more reports, I'm agreeing that the threat reduction is too much. I keep waiting for some kind of extra threat (but not more damage) to be added back in.

[Treesh]

Shaman:
# The bonus of the "Wrath of Air" totem now applies to healing spells as well.

:w00t:WOOHOO! Sweet. Xarhud, you and me man, we'll take on the world with this baby! If the changes hold.;) Maybe this will help unnerf you and buff us both.:D

[Brista]

I, once again, completely and openly disagree with you. They still have bear form which grants armor and life. They still have access to all of the skills of a bear tank. They're not as effective as a warrior but they CAN do it.

About 6 months ago I tanked a Strat Baron run as a Resto Druid with 5 points in Feral. Despite 3 of us being well-equipped Naxx raiders including a superb healer we had multiple wipes and couldnt beat the Baron

To be fair the Warlock was being a complete dps monkey and the only time I ever had aggro was during Growl but it wasn't really a fun experience

Bear in mind that this patch further reduces the ability of even Resto Druids to generate threat and I think you're in for a very tough time going somewhere non-trivial with a resto druid tank. And if it's somewhere trivial you might be better just nuking like nutters and letting the Resto Druid heal rather than having him tank

[Brista]

Utility? I don't think anyone can succesfully argue that an Arms/Fury Warrior brings anywhere near the utility that a Feral Druid does. And the DPS difference? Puh-lease. The DPS loss from a Feral Druid is, I wager, made up with LotP. Throw a Rogue in the Druid's group and bam, the DPS difference is gone. If not made up, made so inconsequential, that the utility the Druid brings makes Arms/Fury Warriors as top OT choice a thing of the past.

It's a good point, Imanerd, but I think the issue for many of us is not that we can't find raid spots but that they're changing our jobs with this patch

I was really having fun tanking with the bear. I can't say the prospect of being a sub-par Rogue with innervates really appeals to me

So I, as a small number of other Druids will too, will switch characters

I don't think having less Druids around is particularly good for the game, we are still one of the least popular classes

I also think that despite being able to handle pre-70 5 mans most Druids will not now want to. It kinda sucks to play for 70 levels as a tank and enjoy it then respec healbot or bad rogue to raid. It's not fun

People who don't play Druids seem to think that it must be a lot of fun to be 70% effective at lots of different things. Then again, they don't play Druids

You can put it down to ego but I want to be a good player, if not one of the best, players in the raid. Being 12th on the dps list while simultaneously having saved some healer a mana pot doesn't excite me like main tanking a hard boss does

Combat ress is very good, it can be spectacularly good, but Warlocks get a very similar ability plus fully raid level dps plus utility plus awesome pvp and soloing

And that's fine, I don't begrduge them that.

My point is that for raiding to be enjoyable you should have an opportunity to excel as a raider. It doesn't matter on the raid if class A can pvp better than class B or class C can solo the Ramparts. Because you're not doing that other stuff, you're raiding

In the final analysis if one has to pay a price in raid effectiveness for stuff that's outside raids then you've chosen the wrong character to raid with

So I'm giving up playing my Druid. It doesn't mean I wouldn't want someone who will bring mediocre dps with some useful utility along on future raids. It's simply that I don't want to be that person, I want to be the superstar dpser or main tank or some other ego-assuaging role while also gaining the benefit of becoming a pvp god vis-a-vis non-raiders. It's a better package in terms of the satisfaction I get out for the time I'm investing

The way WoW is going now it may come in time that everyone reaches that same conclusion which is why I thought it was a good thing to open up fully viable "superstar" type options for the healer classes and which is why I'm so disappointed that they seem to have changed their mind and started to take it all away from us again

[Taelas]

I don't need to be the "superstar" while playing my druid (I do want to be when I play my mage, though). I'm perfectly fine wth DPSing, healing and tanking occasionally as long as I have fun doing it and I am capable of doing it right.

But if a main tank on a boss isn't available, I want to be able to fill that role. I also want to do it ahead of Arms/Fury warriors--after all, I have specced and geared (and it isn't exactly easy to gather druid tanking gear) for tanking.

[Lissa]

However, this certainly doesn't explain the threat nerf as fixing the itemization problems would tend to trade some threat for mitigation (currently gear has a lot more strength or AP than it needs and not nearly enough stamina or armor, for the most part) which would exacerbate the problem. :(

Let's face it, itemization is broken for all classes. When you can look at your Tier sets and see that, for the same item level, they suck compared to random epics and blues, there's something horribly, horribly wrong.

[ima_nerd]

@ both Alliera and Brista:

I see where you're coming from, I really do. I think Blizzard has gone in a bad direction with this patch. While I absolutely don't think a Feral Druid should be able to compete with a Protection Warrior in any aspect of tanking, they (and Prot Paladins) should definitely be in a close second.

As usual for Blizzard, they took an overpowered class and made them underpowered. Eventually, maybe they'll get it right and Druids will be where they need to be.

[TheDragoon]

Let's face it, itemization is broken for all classes. When you can look at your Tier sets and see that, for the same item level, they suck compared to random epics and blues, there's something horribly, horribly wrong.

The interesting thing is that it is not broken for everything. I know I have talked to some shaman players who feel that the tier set is very powerful for them. From what I saw, most of the "easy" equipment sets (obviously for caster DPS, healing, tanking, etc) were done fairly well. However, for things like protection paladins or feral druids where Blizzard seems a bit slow on the uptake as to what they need to be effective, you see sets that are not designed quite as well. :)

[Lissa]

The interesting thing is that it is not broken for everything. I know I have talked to some shaman players who feel that the tier set is very powerful for them. From what I saw, most of the "easy" equipment sets (obviously for caster DPS, healing, tanking, etc) were done fairly well. However, for things like protection paladins or feral druids where Blizzard seems a bit slow on the uptake as to what they need to be effective, you see sets that are not designed quite as well. :)

Not really, I don't know many serious DPS casters that want their Tier 4 or Tier 5 sets except for maybe one piece or two. Right now, most DPS casters would rather have tailored items or random pieces. Very few of the Tier 4 and 5 DPS caster items were setup well. There are also some Blues out there that have more effective stats, have almost the same ilvl (within 5), and yet blow away various Purple items. Itemization right now is really, really bad for all items...

[Delc]

as well as have clear casting procs on crit heals since clear casting is now ALL spell crits, not just a chance on an offensive spell cast.

Is it all spell crits? I had assumed it was just offensive spell crits.

[Kevin]

Is it all spell crits? I had assumed it was just offensive spell crits.

I can't get back on the test realm but I was there briefly and it looked like all spell crits.

[Falomin]

Still don't know about a 10s cooldown on PoM, I've been convinced that nerfing that spell without other buffs really hurt priests. Shield needed help but I think the base mechanics of shields (PW:S and the pally bubble) are a bit flawed. If you have improved shield and ~1000 + healing you are looking at 1750 - 1800 damage shields. Is that good enough? I'm not for sure. Still no help for inner fire, or mana burn (without scaling it's a major joke now) or several of the other issues. Still the shadow priest nerfs that I don't get.

As you said a desperate attempt to make circle of healing better, but since it costs divine spirit that isn't easy to swallow. It is another instant cast heal, it is another way for the priest to stay alive in PvP, and help in PvE and 33% cheaper does help the efficiency. I'd really have to play with it though. It's another one of those skills where I'm not sure it's worth the opportunity costs of other talents to get.

If you do mess around with Circle of Healing please post your thoughts on it, I have considered respeccing and giving it a try but the casters I run with love the Improved Divine Spirit buff and since one of them is my guild leader I prefer to keep him happy:)

I think that the buff to PW:S could be useful if Inner Fire gets buffed as well, at least for casting on yourself, if it could finally give you a little bit of time to cast even a Flash Heal it would be more useful in PvP.

It still boggles my mind that amidst all the other stuff that needs to be fixed Blizzard is insistent on giving PoM a cool down that I do not believe it needs, however the 10 second cooldown will be negligible for PvE which was my chief concern.

Speaking of Mana Burn being worthless, I also have Feedback since I"m a human, that could do with being scrapped and redone as well.

[Warlock]

If playing a tanking class and specced and geared for it I expect to be roughly as good as each of the others at tanking 5-man instances (allowing for the buffs and utility each brings to a group) and to be preferred in some raid fights (where a specialist tank of each class will probably be present).

Mages get to tank in raids (Krosh Firehand). Where are the Druid and Paladin tanking fights?

[ima_nerd]

If playing a tanking class and specced and geared for it I expect to be roughly as good as each of the others at tanking 5-man instances (allowing for the buffs and utility each brings to a group) and to be preferred in some raid fights (where a specialist tank of each class will probably be present).

Mages get to tank in raids (Krosh Firehand). Where are the Druid and Paladin tanking fights?

Sigh... I'm not getting back into this.

Ok, I lied.

Warriors offer NO other utility in a raid besides tanking. Druids and Pallies do. I think Druids and Pallies specced for tanking should be close, but not equal to, a Prot specced Warrior. Druids/Paladins should be fully able to tank raid bosses, just not as well as a Prot Warrior. Thus, Prot Warriors will be wanted but not required.

[Warlock]

Sigh... I'm not getting back into this.

Ok, I lied.

Warriors offer NO other utility in a raid besides tanking. Druids and Pallies do. I think Druids and Pallies specced for tanking should be close, but not equal to, a Prot specced Warrior. Druids/Paladins should be fully able to tank raid bosses, just not as well as a Prot Warrior. Thus, Prot Warriors will be wanted but not required.

Relative advantage in different fights.

Would you be happy with Prot Warriors being the #1 tank on 30% of fights, other Warrior specs top on 10%, Feral Druids and Prot paladins preferred on 20% and other classes taking up the last 20%? Or do you want Prot to be the best on every fight?

Also.. as I've said before, I felt my Prot warrior still pulled his weight when not tanking.

[Monkey]

Sigh... I'm not getting back into this.

Ok, I lied.

Warriors offer NO other utility in a raid besides tanking. Druids and Pallies do. I think Druids and Pallies specced for tanking should be close, but not equal to, a Prot specced Warrior. Druids/Paladins should be fully able to tank raid bosses, just not as well as a Prot Warrior. Thus, Prot Warriors will be wanted but not required.

Warriors offer other utilities--commanding shout, demoralizing shout, battle shout, thunderclap, limitless DPS, execute and the ability to take a few hits are all things warriors can offer. Fights like Vael and Murmur are even designed with DPS warriors in mind--The boss' lower starting HP allows them to execute sooner.

However, it's difficult to quantify the comparative value of non-tanking abilities. For example--a warrior can still perform shouts and (soon) thunderclap while tanking but a Druid who is tanking will not be able to innervate anyone--does that mean thunderclap is worth more than innervate? There are clearly more variables involved.

Stepping back a bit, let's break down raid tanking. There are many components (magic or bleed immune bosses, fights against multiple targets, etc.), but let's use these three basic ones for discussion:
1. Active Mitigation
2. Passive Mitigation
3. Threat Per Time

Should a Protection Warrior be the best in each category? In my opinion it's reasonable and even important in Active Mitigation because that rewards the skill of the Warrior. But the maximum available Passive Mitigation and Threat Per Time with appropriate talents should be comparable across all tanking classes. That's important because Threat per Time more directly influences the success or failure of a fight (especially one with a time limit) than the other two--30% less threat lowers the DPS ceiling by 30% across the entire raid and discourages the use of the 'lesser' tanking class significantly.

I suspect that Blizzard's intended change was motivated by Arena PvP more than the PvE tanking ability of druids. Certainly Druids might have been shining in PvE, but given the proximity of the Arena season and the PoM nerf's seeming PvP motivation, I suspect they didn't like Dire Bears criting for large amounts in PvP. If the developers really feel strongly about these heavy nerfs to Bear DPS, they should make up for it by giving Mangle and other abilities a comparable boost to threat.

However, I still maintain that their "internal testing*" should never have let druids in the live environment get to this level of DPS if it was going to be a problem requiring such a harsh nerf. If players can write spreadsheets to calculate damage based on itemization, then Blizzard definitely can. Combined with the unbelievable PoM nerf ("Spamming it isn't what we intended when we gave it no cooldown,"), it sets my Monkey-sense tingling: Did Blizzard give these as temporary buffs to motivate disillusioned priests and druids into leveling their healers to 70 instead of their DPS class alts? Were they just waiting for a sufficient base population of level-70 healers?









*Or maybe "internal testing" is a code phrase for something else. Let's try some out:
1. "Our [Losing Arena Record] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, and Warriors need a Rage Buff,"
2. "Our [Sadistic Need to Hear the Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth by Healers] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, and Warriors need a Rage Buff,"
3. "Our [6-Beer Lunch] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, Warriors need a Rage Buff, and Buffalo Wings are AWESOME...wait don't put that last part in the patch notes,"

[Brista]

*Or maybe "internal testing" is a code phrase for something else. Let's try some out:
1. "Our [Losing Arena Record] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, and Warriors need a Rage Buff,"
2. "Our [Sadistic Need to Hear the Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth by Healers] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, and Warriors need a Rage Buff,"
3. "Our [6-Beer Lunch] has shown that PoM needs a cooldown, Druids need a DPS nerf, Warriors need a Rage Buff, and Buffalo Wings are AWESOME...wait don't put that last part in the patch notes,"

Games companies are odd as they combine office politics with the gamer's passion for his own little self-interested perspective on the game

I suspect that there are factions at Blizzard and that these decisions are heavily influenced by the internal office politics which is in turn influenced by employees' experiences as players, expressed passionately over their six beer lunches

With TBC there was clearly a decision to motivate and retain players of the four heal-capable classes by offering us extra raid roles. We wouldn't just be stuck in the healbot role. Wonderful stuff and we all got really excited. At this stage it doesn't actually adversely impact anyone while getting us healers all enthusiastic about WoW so you can understand this game design philosophy gathering momentum at this stage

When people started to raid not only did players and staff notice that most of the healbots are tanking or dpsing nowadays while the raids still require the same proportion of healers but they also noticed that given a level playing field some of them dramatically out-performed the pure classes with which they were competing. This hit tanks the hardest because one person usually does most of the Main Tanking and if it was a Druid the Warriors were (justifiably) wondering what the hell they were going to do from now on. I read a lot of the bleeding edge reports from Druids and usually they said something like I tanked because our two Prot Warriors were slow getting to 70 or some other valid reason (valid in the context of competitive tanking)

The problem is that both classes had been unrealistically hyped. Warriors have been assured since day one that they were the premier tanks in the game. Druids were assured that we would be valid tanks in TBC raids.

So in keeping with the promise made to Druids we were indeed valid raid tanks and where we put more effort in than the Warriors did, we got the job ahead of them

This patch breaks the promise to Druids in favour of keeping (or resuming) the promise to Warriors.

It also supports what will undoubtedly become a trend in the next few patches of gently ushering healers back into their healbot roles. They have to do this, if all the healers want to dps who is going to heal? There's no way that Warriors, Mages and Rogues in any significant number are going to re-roll healer. Not least because soon all the healer forums will be like the current state of the Druid forums with level 70 players asking each other What game are you going to play instead of WoW then?

I think WoW has really screwed up. Instead of a genuinely hybrid raid experience which would have many of us hybrid players tanking for 6 months, dpsing for 6 months then healing for a year many of us are re-rolliing dps or warriors since the perception now is that those characters are favoured over healers. That may or may not be a valid perception but it's certainly a widely-held one

Another creeping malaise is the problem Bolty has raised here of dps power out-stripping healing power in pvp. This problem seems to be worse at level 70 than it was at level 60 despite a stated intention to achieve the opposite through itemisation. I just speak for myself but whenever I've tried to heal in bgs I've really struggled to out-pace the damage. I think the itemisation solution is failing because there are both survivability and damage options and people almost always pick the latter to pvp with

So the future for healers is bleak as healing in pvp gets more and more marginalised, healing in raids means a commitment to only doing that and none of the fun alternative roles we've been promised and for many healers will start to become more pressured as guilds become more demanding because they need their healers to turn up regularly and play well and they have fewer of them. Anyone who has been the only Priest buffing a 40 man raid will know what I mean here - it really isn't pleasant to be under-staffed as a healer

Now WoW is trapped by its own commitments to other players to pursue these policies. They can't let paladins and druids main tank raids because the warriors find it grossly unfair. They can't let shadow priests and dps shammies be viable as dps in the long term or there will be thousands of frustrated mages and rogues who can't get raid spots

Ironically the system where healers felt that being able to raid as dps was something of a luxury special treat and only one guild in 5 had a shadow priest and one in 25 had a moonkin did kind of work

By upsetting the status quo they've brought into open conflict those healers who want to play a diversified character (not just a healbot) and the rest of the WoW population. They can't alienate 80% of their population by supporting the healers so they have to screw us over. This month its Bear tanks and Shadow Priests. Next month I predict Elemental Shammies will get hit

There isn't much they can do with regard to the general trends but there is something they can do in the management of it. The main thing they need to do is move towards little and often rather than dramatic redefinitions of a class's power. Next they need to rediscover why they had a policy of buffing rather than nerfing. They spent 12 months buffing the classes one by one and now they've forgotten that finesse and are hitting a class with a nerf sledgehammer.

They also need to re-evaluate healers and tanks. My server is starting to get really short of healers and tanks. It's not unusual to get a group of dps rogue dps mage dps hunter dps priest and dps warrior all arguing about the tanking and healing chores. My rather belated conclusion is that it's not worth playing anything in WoW except dps. People value the classes that can top damage meters, top Killing Blows, win duels, win arena matches. Itemisation supports dps and dps usually wins in pvp. If you raid and you're dps you get better at pvp, raiding and grinding otherwise you just get better at raiding

To cap it all, if I'm right and the decision-making is being influenced by the developers' experiences as players, deeply involved passionate players who are not objective, then future decisions will not help the minority groups like prot Pallies and moonkin druids which in turn will crush the healers and when the healers leave so will everyone else

I should get a placard saying "the end of the world is nigh" made, sorry to be so gloomy everyone and I hope that this analysis encourages some of you to influence the future of WoW in a more enlightened direction :blush: