RSS Patch 3.1.2 Item Changes, Blue posts

Patch 3.1.2 Item Changes As mentioned in the <a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=865" target="_blank">patch notes</a> the 3.1.2 patch on PTRs changed a few end-game items, some people asked me for screenshots of the new versions so here we go. <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from: Blizzard (<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=865" target="_blank" style="color: white;">Source</a>)</div><div class="blizzquote">Items <ul style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;"><li>Furious Gladiator’s Staff and Furious Gladiator’s Greatstaff: The agility values on these two items were too high. They have been reduced by 50%.</li><li>Guise of the Midgard Serpent: The base attack power on this item has been lowered to balance it against items of a similar quality.</li></ul></div></div></div> <div align="center"><a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/furiousgladiatorsgreatstaff_ptr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/furiousgladiatorsgreatstaff_ptr_small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/furiousgladiatorsstaff_ptr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/furiousgladiatorsstaff_ptr_small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/guiseofthemidgardserpent_ptr.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2009/may/guiseofthemidgardserpent_ptr_small.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a></div> Blue posts <div class="blizzquotewrap"><div class="blizzquoteinner"><div class="blizzquoteheader">Quote from Blizzard staff</div><div class="blizzquote">Comparing DPS on Training Dummies When you only focus on Patchwerk or training dummies or simcraft, you can come up with a number that may be higher or lower than other specs or classes. The problem is that number is meaningless in many other fights. Do you have to move? Do you have to deal with adds? Do you have to swap out gear to improve your health? Do you run OOM? Is your threat too high? Do you need to free NPCs? All of those are "real" considerations on the actual bosses you're trying to kill. The real questions, which have somewhat frustratingly fuzzy answers, are: Do you justify a raiding slot? Are you pulling your weight? Would your group be better off replacing you? Does the rogue beat you because your class is undertuned or because it's a perfect fight for a rogue (or because you need to L2P)? (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903516723-a-moonkins-plea.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/idruids.gif" alt="" border="0" /> Druid (<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=700" target="_blank">3.1 Skills List</a> / <a href="http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid" target="_blank">3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.</a>) Balance DPS We think Balance dps is a little low on live, but changing Improved Moonkin Form to 30% Spirit to Spellpower in 3.1.2 should be something like a 5% spellpower boost to raid-buffed druids, which should be around a 5% dps increase. YMMV. Also keep in mind that the Ulduar fights are pretty diverse. Fights like XT are a dream for melee, especially rogues and cats. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903516723-a-moonkins-plea.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Balance DPS Rotation Totally agree that Brain Freeze is a pretty good mechanic. It works though because Frost never wants to use Fireball normally. For Balance, we need to keep both nukes in play. The spec is less fun to play (for me anyway) when Starfire or Wrath clearly wins and you just nuke with that spell. An ideal rotation, if we can make it work, would be more like SF x 3-6 then Wrath x 3-6, with Insect Swarm, Moonfire and the rest thrown in as needed. The "3-6" means that if you switch at the wrong time, your dps is still decent, but if you switch at the right time, your dps is better. But it can't be a 100% predictable number or there is no learning -- no opportunity to improve your game -- involved. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903516723-a-moonkins-plea.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Balance DPS in Ulduar As I've said a few times, it's pretty tricky to calculate "real" dps in Ulduar because there are so few Patchwerk-like fights. That is actually to some extent by design because it gets players to focus more on "How do I maximize my dps on this fight?" rather than "What's my dps?" But it does make estimating who is high or low tricky for both you and us. It's awesome you are taking names, and I'll attribute that to knowing how to gear and play your class. We do worry that the Scorch change hurt Balance and Elemental since we ended up partially compensating the mages. The basic design problem for Balance, as I know you know, comes down to Wrath and Stafire just being very similar spells. One is always going to win out by virtue of damage or cast time. Eclipse was our attempt to make which one wins more dynamic. I think it accomplishes that, but I think it's also fair to say that there aren't a ton of druids who are in love with the talent. Or maybe it's more fair to say that there are druids who just can't stand it. It's also not swell that the talent has driven many druids to mods to help manage it. We're not going to give you a rotation that ends up being something like SF, Wrath, SF, Wrath or even SF x4, Wrath x4. We just think that's too boring and ultimately bad for the game. You can argue that you like Balance because it's very predictable and macro-able, but it should be clear that we view that as a problem. I'm in total hand-waving, brainstorm mode here. This is not a design we have cooking that we're all ready to implement, but imagine Eclipse worked something like this: Every Starfire you cast has a 20% cumulative chance of making your next Wrath do 30% more damage. So after SF1, the chance is 20%, but after SF5 the chance is 100%. That encourages you to swap spells somewhat randomly, but less random than the system we have now. The goal is to have something where you sometimes switch after SF 3 and sometimes after SF 5. Good druids would always switch at the right time and those who are still trying to maximize their potential could get better about switching at the right time. You could also have a system where every SF has a chance of making Wrath slightly better, with a stack on that effect, so that at some point it's the right time to switch. Don't feel the need to point out how you could game this system -- I spent all of 2 minutes coming up with it. If and when we decide to change it, we'd put far more work into the design. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16903516723-a-moonkins-plea.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) <img src="http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/icons/ihunters.gif" alt="" border="0" /> Hunter (<a href="http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?page=620" target="_blank">3.1 Skills List</a> / <a href="http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?hunter" target="_blank">3.1 Talent + Glyph Calc.</a>) Hunters in PvE 1) Hunter dps was just too high through much of Naxx. Ideally hunters should be competing with locks, rogues and mages and for a lot of the LK content they were just head and shoulders above the rest. 2) Currently, hunter dps might be a little low, but we're not 100% convinced yet. Some of the earlier fights in Ulduar are very melee friendly. XT is a rogue and cat's dream. We were pretty harsh to melee in Naxx with a lot of run-out moments and cleaves. Kologarn and other parts of Ulduar turn that on the ranged a little and require them to focus more on situational awareness. We think the later fights in Ulduar are a little more ranged-friendly, and we're waiting to get more parses from those. Plenty of guilds are on or have beaten Yogg by now, but the current data are pretty noisy since people are still learning the encounters. 3) We understand Vezax is a special case for hunters. By the same token, our goal is not to have every class do the same relative dps on every boss. Some fights are just better for some than others. Our goal isn't even to have "the shadow priest fight" or "the fury warrior fight." We just want diversity. We really wanted the Ulduar encounters to push players more towards "What can I do to improve my dps on this fight?" and less on "What is my dps?" 4) Survival may still be slightly higher than BM or MM. We don't think it's off by 1000 dps in most cases. It's something we want to keep looking at. We understand some Marks hunters say they'd be fine if it weren't for mana. (<a href="http://blue.mmo-champion.com/28/16904206957-hunter-balanceblizzards-opinion--attempt-2.html" target="_blank">Source</a>) Hunters in PvP 1) The TNT stuns and the uber mana drains were just too good last season. Sorry. Those aren't coming back. 2) Last season, burst spell damage was very high. That put a premium on active defenses, which ended up being a good niche for hunters. Last season there was almost no reason to bring a warrior; rogues and hunters brought the MS debuff in a stronger form as well as a host of additional utility. Warriors are back now, which means more competition for that spot. 3) This season has seen different classes rising to the top. Priests are rogues are good. Arms and Ret are good, depending on who you believe. We are nerfing or have nerfed some of those classes, which should open up the top playing-field a little. We are getting rid of Exorcism allowing paladins to two-shot pets. I'd agree that hunter representation is a little low at the moment, but we're not sure the class needs massive buffs so much as others need some nerfs. 4) Hunters are betters in 5s than 2s. It's really challenging to have every class or spec have the same representation in small teams as large, which is one of the reasons we offer multiple sizes. Recently the community seems to be focusing on 2s even more than 3s. We are taking some steps to make sure the larg...</div></div></div>

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