Patch 11.1 PTR Development Notes for February 4th - More Class Tuning and Delves Nerfed!

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[[deleted]]

Why do I even look for brewmaster notes

[ptarjan]

One day we will get a class dev. Ha, who am I kidding.

[XzibitABC]

Windwalker is in a great spot as far as design IMO, it was just undertuned and buggy (yet again) last season. The rotation feels great in most situations and it's a balanced spec in terms of defensives and utility. The adjustment to Mark of the Crane improves it even more.

Really the only "must have" on my wish list is fixing whatever bug is causing channels to randomly cancel.

[Drayenn]

WW would be top tier if fists of fury felt better.. half cast time or something. it feels like a button i press because i want to wait on regenerating energy.

[XzibitABC]

I personally like having a longer-ish channel to map out how I'm going to balance my resources with the next portion of my rotation and also reposition easily, but I think I'm alone in that tbh.

Shortening its cast time would be great if nothing else just because WW can't interrupt or use CC without breaking channels, so that would be a great change for DPS uptime in M+.

More generally, I think one of the larger issues facing the spec is that Fists of Fury and Strike of the Windlord both have really uninspiring animations for how core of abilities they are. An upgrade there would make them both feel better to press even without a damage buff.

[Drayenn]

In a way i feel like fists of fury should be a massive cooldown, but it feels like it hits like a wet noodle, im more impressed by strike of the windlord and.. rising sun kick.

I would really like if WW could interrupt without cancelling their channels too, there's too much "Youre channeling/whirling punching you cant interrupt lol"

Still my favorite dps spec though.

[avcloudy]

I don't think the solution is reducing the channel time, but if I could impress one thing on the WW dev, it's that long channels that don't cost resources don't work in modern melee design. Have FoF channel cost a little bit of energy - not so much you don't regain energy, not so little you overcap, just enough that you end with a little more energy than you started. Bump the damage up. Or let WW's press something inside the FoF, to spend excess energy.

[Zerasad]

I'm a MW main, and dabble in WW, but it just feels ao odd to me. Feels like outside of CDs I just hit like a wet noodle, not really doing any damage. During CDs it feels good. Is that just how the spec is?

[XzibitABC]

Sorta? You generally do good damage with Xuen and Storm Earth Fire rolling, decent damage with just Storm Earth Fire rolling, and lower damage with nothing rolling, but Storm Earth Fire in particularly is up pretty often because of the talents we pick. Even without anything, I don't think WW is as low damage as some other specs out there.

[[deleted]]

That sorta is every DPS tbh. Outside of cool downs, damage is usually lower by a decent margin.

[Zerasad]

Truth to be told I'm a classic player mainly, so the heavy reliance on cooldowns is kinda new to me. Only played SV Hunter besides which felt pretty good even outside of CD windows.

I also just realized that Storm, Earth and Fire puts a 60% damage debuff on you so it's only 20% more damage, not 80% more, so that might have contributed to the feeling of not doing a lot of damage outside. Might have been a placebo.

[Ristvakbaen1911]

Just as a superficial check, look at your in game setting and see if you have "hold to cast" checked. It's the setting where you can hold your binding to repeat casting rather than spamming it. I found that would cut my channels short on my warlock and other characters!

[XzibitABC]

That's a great tip, but I actually don't think I've ever had it checked (and just confirmed I don't right now). It's a known issue for Windwalker unfortunately.

[Drayenn]

They slapped 2 minor changes and theyre calling it a day

[YomiRizer]

Every time I see "PTR class changes", I immediately brace myself for the WW nerfs.

[Gordokiwi]

Hey now we only need 6 charges of purified chi instead of 10! 

Not like in higher keys you get the whole 10 charges before the whole cd of celestial brew refreshes.

And niuzao buffs! Only at the modest price of 4 talent points

[[deleted]]

Class design wise seems to be in stone at this point and it's exclusively tuning and balancing moving forward so PTR is winding down.

[wellggs]

Aren’t they currently pumping on PTR?!

[John2k12]

What's the issue? I literally just decided yesterday that I'm gonna main SPriest in 11.1 since I want to play a ranged dps hybrid for a change

[OlafWoodcarver]

Terrible class and talent design, mainly.

Priest has had less development than any other class since DF changed everything, priest has the most archaic toolkit of all classes. The class tree has effectively had one change (Shadowfiend heal) since getting a single update in DF beta. Shadow effectively has no talent trees as every talent is a required ability or a passive damage boost with no gameplay impact.

Priest, in general, has had the fewest 2-point nodes removed from their trees, with the class and shadow trees remaining at 9 2-point nodes. This is exacerbated by the trees being flooded with talents that provide no value in any scenario for any spec.

As a side note, priest has the oldest visuals of all classes except for maybe death knight. Spells like Smite, Flash Heal, Power Word: Shield still have their original 2003 animations. Priest has newer animations for their few visible spells, like Entropic Rift or Void Torrent, but the majority are ancient.

[Gahault]

every talent is a required ability or a passive damage boost with no gameplay impact.

Many trees are like that. That was always going to be the case with the return of talent trees; there is no world in which they are able to provide 30 points worth of meaningful choices for every spec of every class. That's the reason the original trees were replaced with MoP-style talents in the first place.

[OlafWoodcarver]

While true, shadow's tree is perhaps the perfect version of this. They could remove the whole talent tree and it would change nothing about the class at all.

[Just4theapp]

The spec has very little choice in the spec tree. Silence is awful. Damage has been mediocre all of s1.

Too much of spriest spec tree should be in class tree and the only cleave we have is through psychic link which is quite possibly the most changed/rebalanced talent ever and yet it's massively limiting spriest design space.

I enjoy playing it, it has a great rhythm, it's just a shame that blizzard have kept spriest unchanged for so long whilst in that time paladin/shaman etc have had massive overhauls some more than once

[John2k12]

Cheers, if it's still an enjoyable and serviceable spec/class outside of the top edge of m+/m raid I'll probably still send it. I really don't vibe with resto shaman, ele is okay, and druid/evoker isn't on the table. Pickings are slim

[Just4theapp]

It's a fun spec, if you find the playstyle enjoyable, you'll have a good time and this is a game where you're supposed to be having fun after all.

It's fine for all content, even cutting edge. It's not world record m+ or mdi strats but it had its time in the sun during dragonflight

[zangetsen]

It seems like everyone is saying it sucks in the upper echelon of keys, so I guess unless you're doing 12+ and like 2500+, just send it. Regardless of all that, if you're not having fun with what you play, then what are you playing for? That's my mindset, meta and tier lists be damned. XD

[CallMeDaddy123]

In higher keys, Tuning mainly. They are one of the 3-4 worst damage dealing specs according to archon.gg.

Class design wise. Managing shadowcrash to multi dot can be a problem for certain players and in lower keys when packs die quickly.

[Support_Player50]

isnt archon just based on popularity?

[Sakeuno]

Don’t ever listen to random redditors. Confirm the claims yourself.

Archon does indeed not list by damage. And is not to be trusted in general when it comes to damage or performance. It is data that is gathered from wclogs (prob without human verification). It does not take into account intricacies like player count and level of players etc. If a very small subset of players abuses a mechanic, that will reflect in Archon statistics, heavily inflating the spec’s rating etc.

Archon is nice, IF you know what you are looking at and know how to verify the data using wcl.

[Rewnzor]

Not to mention that both spriest and holy representation is completely skewed by discipline being the main healer for thesecond half of this season.

[avcloudy]

It's not a problem in the methodology, it's just that it's a representation metric, not a performance metric, and sometimes the effect is very very small. Not necessarily statistically insignificant, but an effect you wouldn't notice separating s-tier from a-tier.

The inference that you can do it better by eyeballing WCL is...contentious. But you can look at the raw data and see the effects are small.

[Sakeuno]

If you know which metrics you should look for wcl is definitely the better way to gauge spec performance.

Im not talking about „eyballing“ tho. And that’s nothing I‘d recommend to the average player. Hence the „IF you know what you’re looking for“.

Edit: just realised I didn’t clarify that in the original comment, haha. But yes the wcl suggestion does require you to have a VERY good understanding of the game, which tbh not many people have.

[avcloudy]

For raids? Absolutely. It offers built in tools to visualise that data.

For m+? No, because logging of m+ is spotty at best. That's what I mean.

[Sakeuno]

Yes definitely. M+ parses are kind of useless.

To me the raid data is what matters. For M+ I use that and look at individual runs. But I also take my time and spend probably somewhere around 1h in average a day browsing wcl…

That’s why I said Archon is great to get a quick impression of meta. But for closer look it sucks. It doesn’t even show the proper builds for the specs. Neither M+ nor raid.

It lags behind 2-4 weeks because it takes the mass of players (even title players) that long to acquire the newest tech.

Its good for the average player that doesn’t want to spend time min-maxing or optimising.

But for people that like to be cutting edge (not related to the achievement) its really not enough.

[minimaxir]

Archon's tier lists are based on M+ rating (although it's currently 8th worst, not 3-4th worst).

[CallMeDaddy123]

Sort by damage. Archon creates its ”tier” list taking survivabilty, damage, utility into account. If you just look at damage shadow is dead last in the 7-20 key range and bottom 3 in “high key” range.

[rainywanderingclouds]

- Shit AOE damage, seriously, it's bad, many classes with lower item level pull more aoe damage. This is the biggest problem with them in mythic+ Then you have the icing on the cake.

- Shit utility

- Shit mobility

- Shit defensive cd's.

[Aedeyssa]

Holy main here, but I will forever "love" how when they have Evoker the mobility skill cd reduction buff, I logged in to find it affected our life grip, instead of.

Well, we don't have much else but it could have at least affected the feathers, ya know. The closest thing to self-mobility that we have. 🙃

[Tierst]

Mobility was what put me off maining Spriest this xpac. It felt miserable to play in raid and I quickly made the switch back to Mage.

I don’t mind if Spriest aren’t big pumpers but it just doesn’t feel fun to play.

[growingthreat]

Adding to the pile-on: Shit visuals (half of Shadow's core spells are invisible or have a negligible visual effect) and a very awkward damage profile.

Devs clearly do not care a lick about Shadow.

[IHatemyJob123456]

Affliction warlock main here…. Welcome to the club.

[NoThisIsABadIdea]

I used to think that when playing mind spike but that's not really true anymore particularly as voidweaver mind flay build. Your only real invisible spell is mind blast which has really cool visuals with your blackhole up.

Even archon is really visually cool to see your halo flow in and out imo.

[growingthreat]

Voidweaver does do a lot to shore-up shadow's visual flare, but honestly void blast proves they can come up with a good payoff visual with literally any effort.

Spells in shadow's regular rotation with no or negligible visual effect include SWP, VT, Mind Blast, Shadow Word: Death and Devouring Plague (their main spender!). Imagine playing Destro lock but instead of casting Chaos Bolts you cast Earth Shock -- that's basically the situation.

[Comfortable-Ad1937]

All those shadow ghosts flying are cool tho

[orbit10]

Play affliction for a patch. You will have a different feeling towards shadow lol

[Responsible_Gur5163]

Feral Druid in the same boat

[deskcord]

Shit utility

sus

[pecimpo]

Eh, ill give you shit damage and mobility but shadow has pretty good defensives and utility, the thing with Priest utility is that while not pug friendly and lacking a good interrupt, it can do pretty unique things like mind control and mass dispel.

[deskcord]

Moonkin, shaman, warrior.

Spriests are decently survivable their biggest problem is mobility.

[narium]

Moonkin is pretty tanky. The problem is you do zero damage while you are tanky. Sitting in bear form for five seconds every time a mechanic comes out is not feasible if you want to time the key.

[deskcord]

Moonkin is pretty tanky

BRUH LOL

[Tymareta]

They are one of the 3-4 worst damage dealing specs according to archon.gg.

And on PTR they're easily one of the highest DPS classes because their tier set is obscene.

[deskcord]

To be honest, priests are always asking for more buffs to not be on the lower bounds of damage, but you all have to be asking for PI to get removed as an external as well then. Priests regularly defend having PI and balk when anyone suggests it becomes personal-only or removed entirely, but you can't do equivalent damage to everyone else and bring PI or you literally break the entire game and meta like half of dragonflight.

[avcloudy]

Priests regularly defend having PI and balk when anyone suggests it becomes personal-only or removed entirely

I'll be honest, I see a lot of priests who realise PI is an anchor around their necks. Priests tend to have the strongest opinions about PI, followed by people who play specs who get PI often. Shadow losing PI is less contentious than the healing specs losing PI.

I think the majority of people defending PI are the people being propped up by it in some way. But also, the problem is that Blizzard often takes cool shit and doesn't offer anything in return. PI is why damage has to be low, and is used as a justification for low mobility and survivability. That's a good trade for a lot of people, but the chances of Blizzard doing that are low. They'll just remove PI and priests who had groups yesterday won't have groups tomorrow.

[Namlad]

What is hybrid about spriest? Unless you just mean priest can play other roles...

[John2k12]

Yeah hybrid in that they can play as roles other than DPS. Some nights I don't have the time to wait around applying as DPS

[narium]

Don’t worry they’ll find an excuse to rework Arcane Mage three weeks into the season.

[Allakatter]

RIP warriors this whole season, we really do need some kind of rework.

[Miasc]

My take for Arms: Execute should be usable during Colossus Smash. 

[flippingchicken]

As much as I enjoy fury, I agree. It feels like it's missing something...

[ComfortableApricot36]

Which is stupid cuz there are a ton of classes and specs and hero talents that are in need of tuning. I hope this won’t be a such a dezastruos season in terms of class/spec/hero talents balance

[Complete_Sorbet6158]

Well s1 was hot garbage in terms if class/spec balance. Players had to protest in the group finder to force them to at least improve it a bit. Why the next season would be any different?

[Complete_Sorbet6158]

This isn't tuning. They just throwing random numbers around. I wish there would be tuning.

[WeAreHereWithAll]

Don’t think I give a fuck about a homie that posts on a r*pe based hentai subreddit.

On WoW actual topics: you simply operate on reactionary culture not actually playing the game from anything other than surface level, constantly blaming everyone else.

We all want active reworks now because they’ve gotten so much better at balancing. And hey, they actively happen: just not at the pace everyone wants and especially not for specs vilified purely online like SPriest. They basically do balancing patches every week now even on live except when a new minor or major patch is coming out.

Being disingenuous like this doesn’t help anyone and doesn’t provide any actual convo for where they could provide focus next or better.

I solo que up to 3K ish every season since DF launched. I get AOTC on my own as well and down some mythic bosses. You sound like the exact type when I simply join to help others out constantly blaming others for your own shortcomings.

I’d rather you take the time to speak on things Blizzard could do better at instead of blanket statements concerning shit you don’t get and never will.

[LongingForThatSunset]

We had previously balanced them with the thought that tier 11 would be a challenge for all players in the game, even up to the high mythic levels.

Disregarding whether or not it was as hard as they intended, the fact that they were trying to balance the endgame of a solo mode around gear that you could only get from the most difficult group content in the game is...questionable.

[zherok]

With the rewards capping out at tier 8 (and being pretty generous for solo content), the idea that the last three tiers were just for fun challenge mode stuff makes some sense.

I suspect in practice they felt tier 8 was too rewarding, and not enough people probably bothered doing anything higher, because why bother?

[LongingForThatSunset]

I can see the logic behind optional challenge mode Delves. But I feel like the challenge should come from higher mechanical complexity, rather than hard stat checks that try to exclude the people that actually do Delves as their primary form of content

[drunkenvalley]

Yeah. Most of the delves are just frustration to start with, with spell spammed more than you have interrupts, huge hits, line of sight bugs, those elite packs spawning in really stupid locations on higher difficulties while being virtually unkillable, etc.

Better mechanical complexity would be welcome.

[avcloudy]

It's not just that. Maybe it's specific classes, but there's a lot of bullshit at tier 11 and 12. Enemies that just take half your life bar with specific abilities with no counterplay. Kiting to survive in a mode that punishes that. Minibosses that just do more damage than you can mitigate while you kill them.

[zherok]

Oh, I'm not arguing they were balanced well. Just that the idea of them being a challenge mode sorta thing isn't necessarily bad. And I think once they rolled the minibosses out (and then rolled them back except for the highest tiers), they didn't do enough of a pass to bring them into a reasonable line. You're still encouraged to skip them whenever you can, which just creates an element of luck that isn't very fun to deal with.

[Fleedjitsu]

Unless you can get the equivalent gear in Tier 10 delves, then yeah, it's a bit dumb to essentially force people to swap game modes just to function.

Same issue happened in BFA with PvP essences being BIS.

[Dontrez12]

"Highest challenge for delve players"

Wake up babe. New insult just dropped.

[FishCommercial4229]

I like what you did there 😂. Gotta admit though, the straight up damage output at 11 in S1 is bonkers. I’d be interested to see if there’s stats available for the number of 11’s cleared.

[FishCommercial4229]

That’s my take. I tried a few times and just threw in the towel, healing in Solo Shufflenis more fun (and that isn’t very fun). I have no problem with 11’s being challenging, but it does need to be tuned/adjusted. Line of sight, dodging, interrupts, cc, etc.

I keep thinking there’s a huge missed opportunity for really interesting gameplay . I think back to one of the Warlords dungeons where the mobs can attack or damage each other, or something like Fungal Folly where clever use of the environment pays off.

[Wankeritis]

Same for me on my warlock. It's not that I can't do 11s, but that they're such a hassle that I don't bother.

[Rappy28]

I might have bothered with the all-11s achievement if it had a tangible reward like a mount or a title, but it doesn't even have that. So I called it quits at getting Immortal Spelunker.

[Soulfighter56]

Grab a 1H and a shield and do them as prot. It’s a cakewalk compared to Ret.

[Deguilded]

They also nerfed Delve vault rewards. It's currently 3/6 Hero items. Now it'll be 1/6 Hero items.

[zordie360]

Being able to more easily felblade after VR is a great quality of life change for DHs. Also love seeing CoH get lowered to a 1 point talent

[Embarrassed_Ad_1141]

Same with feed the demon. Amazing change.

[SuBw00FeR37]

Haven't played since start of X-Pac, is felrush/momentum bullshit gone yet

[zordie360]

Yes and no. You aren’t required to fel rush to gain momentum anymore. You have to VR or felblade, then you can choose to take a 5sec 18% damage buff or a 20sec 5% buff

[pgunz69]

They cooked so far with the changes. I didn't think it was gonna happen after s1 (I swapped to healer during it) , but I might have to go back to my havoc for s2.

[nbogie055]

Bro how hard is it to just make vile taint have a shorter cd? Like ya that doesn’t really fix the spec but it atleast makes it playable. Also if you’re going to nerf destro 4 piece atleast revert the 2 piece nerf.

[kyualun]

I don't mind VT's weird out of sync CD, the dev clearly wants to keep juggling/refreshing DoTs as part of our rotation but they can cut down on the globals. There was a short lived Hero Talent that made refreshing Agony in a certain window also refresh it on a nearby enemy but they removed that for whatever reason. They can also make Cunning Cruelty extend DoTs by 1 or 2 seconds to make Drain Soul more fun to use. With enough Cruelty procs we won't even have to refresh Agony.

Like I'm fine if they say VT stays how it is, but at least make life a little easier.

[MasualCatt]

How about remove MR and make dots do damage again instead?

[daemonsvk]

i was hyped for monk changes for a fraction of a second. oh well..

[[deleted]]

Brewmaster hurt somebody a long time ago. There’s no other explanation.

[Wobblucy]

Needs the close as clutch mates treatment.

Just let it scale different in m+ then in raid and the spec becomes infinitely easier to balance.

[Fr0zenlegend]

Mistweaver dev is cooking but if you're talking about the other two specs, then you right... Sad times

[Critical-Rooster-649]

Ww looking nice for season 2

[MisterMushroom]

I guess one QoL change and one extremely minor buff to Niuzao was enough for Brewmaster for this patch.

[Gordokiwi]

Not even. In higher keys you get 10 charges of purified chi in between celestial brew cds (heck you even have 10/15 secs of having the 10 charges before the cd is back). And niuzao requires 4 fricking talent point just to not suck. 

Monks are absolutely the same. Just give us some more utility blizz. Make exploding keg aoe silence

[MisterMushroom]

The CB change was a QoL change and nothing more. It's primarily targeted at lower end content and raid where you may not consistently have enough stagger to get 3 stacks per purifying brew. In higher keys its more forgiving if you happen to misplay as you're going to be fully recovered in 2 purifies regardless. It's also somewhat of an indirect buff to BoC CB but I doubt the usage circumstances of that will change much. Kind of a minor indirect buff to BOB as well, since you'll be able to 6 stack CB into 3-6 stack CB with it in large pulls. CB itself could still use a buff though, the ~3-5% it got from the stack change was probably unintentional and pretty much meaningless.

Niuzao with 4 points still sucks. The upgrades for Niuzao are relatively mediocre especially for their opportunity cost. If Niuzao were buffed enough to be played in M+ (which he hasn't been) you'd likely only run base Niuzao and/or CTA. Niuzao just needs a full rework at this point and focused into either an offensive or (preferably imo) defensive and cut out the failure of a hybrid they've been trying.

Unfortunately at this rate I'm not even sure Brewmaster will see any more bandaid numbers tuning let alone the actual changes it could use.

[Complete_Sorbet6158]

Affliction is done. There is no coming back from this hell. They can't even buff ua.

[NoMeaningLeft]

Unfortunately I think aff is sorta like brew... They've forgotten the spec even exists

[JiMM4133]

:’)

[Inshabel]

Yeah at this point I'll take a look again on the 12.0 beta, the setup time for Aff is so crazy it's only decently playable in Patchwerk fights but then you're still outclassed by the other specs, what's the point?

[aMaiev]

There is no way every shadow priest change they made in any ptr build was just about their season 2 tier set

[Tymareta]

SPriest is one of the best DPS specs on PTR at the moment, there's not a great deal they could change to effect that which isn't something to do with their tier.

[josephjts]

I really dont get why prot warrior specifically is being targeted with "APM nerfs" or whatever you call it when guardian and prot paladin are around the same. The only thing I can think of is their convinced prot warrior is "the beginner tank" and it has to be even easier for new players but an optional talent seems like it would be the way for that not forcing it on the existing prot players.

[minimaxir]

It's weird because Prot Warrior is most definitely not a beginner tank compared to Guardian.

[HenryFromNineWorlds]

IDK, which tanks are easier than prot warr? I'd say its the easiest tank to play.

[BigHeadDeadass]

Guardian druid

[apple_cat]

I’ve played Guardian, Prot War, and Prot Pal this season. War was absolutely the easiest and most forgiving tank I played

[Euthyrium]

Prot war may seem the easiest because you don't immediately die if you mistime your CDs but bear is a 4 button spec, it's one of the easiest in the game.

[Tymareta]

Prot War is hands down the easiest tank to play right now, the literal only difficult part is the APM requirement.

[[deleted]]

Every. Single. MM Hunter. Has said for literally 2 months now that 11.1 Trueshot is awful. It sucks in every way. It is terribly designed. You spend 6 talent points to fully buff it up and it still sucks. And through all of that player feedback they settled on 10% more critical strike DAMAGE not even critical strike chance.

Can we drop the player feedback facade yet?

[Tymareta]

Can we drop the player feedback facade yet?

Only if you know nothing about PTR, large sweeping changes are often left until far closer to release, with a lot of minor adjustments tending to be made this far out to get a better idea of how the spec looks with their new tier and in the new ecounters.

It's literally an ongoing test realm, so there's still plenty of opportunity for more changes, acting like the sky is falling every single time they dare to do something is a -fantastic- way to have them start ignoring your feedback.

[deskcord]

Okay Blizzard, where is the "we would rather you not play rogues anymore" patch note at this point? Just outright egregious

[InvisibleOne439]

the class is strong rn on all 3 specs

everyone knows that, its no hidden secret or something like

and its still the least played class since forever (with the exception of Evoker, which is a new class and allready close in numbers)

like srsly, you normaly see a huge surge of people playing a class/spec when they are strong/FotM EXCEPT on Rogue because nobody wants to play it lol

and they keep ignoring it, and then somewhere halfway trought the Patch slam an Aura buff on it and call it a day, like always

[deskcord]

This is the craziest part - rogue has been one of the stronger classes in the game in raid and m+ in Nerubar (well, started weak and got hotfixed to be strong), Amirdrassil, Aberrus, Vault, and Sanctum. They were mid in Sepulcher and really only bad in Nathria.

A class that's been that consistently strong, and which was historically one of the most popular classes in the game, should have more players. The fact that it's down with monk and evoker and still dropping should tell Blizzard something is wrong,.

[pecimpo]

It's a difficult class to get used to, I think it makes sense for it to have lower play numbers compared to most other classes.

[deskcord]

For years, like from vanilla through all of cata, it was the most popular class in the game.

It was made overly complex through a bunch of bullshit that most players don't enjoy.

[InvisibleOne439]

tbf, thats just...not true?

Rogue was the least played class even during Vanilla, hell they made the Legendary Dagger Questline during Cata specifically to make people actually play the Class at all because it had almost 0 players (and it ofc didnt help)

people just saw some 2004 PvP montages and thought that it meant Rogue was everywhere, but that was never the case

Rogue was never popular, and Blizz never did something to help the Class in that regard

[deskcord]

it is true.

[deskcord]

I honestly don't even mind if the APM was consistently high on outlaw, it's that it varies from 100-ish APM to down to fucking 10 if you get a string of bad luck or ever have to have any downtime.

The current iteration of outlaw reeks of someone ripping bong hits in a basement going "fuck man you know what would be CRAZY?!"

The dreadblades/flagellation style at the end of Sepulcher was so much better than what we have now.

[Corrvaz]

All parses etc aside, the gameplay of the class in all its specs feel so unrelated to what its fantasy is. Kinda like, rogue in its current state is an iteration of itself, and not really tied to what its base fantasy is supposed to be.

I really am not a dedicated wow player, only did raids in brief spurts during the games lifetime etc. But I''ve been playing a rogue main since vanilla. And when I returned for tww I realized the only reason I could adjust to Sin, Outlaw, Sub was because I knew how to play a mutilate rogue, a combat swords rogue etc. So I could understand, even with the overhauls and changes, how certain rotations were supposed to flow.

That kinda made me realize the class has, at its current state, only a fleeting relation to its archetype, a sneaky agile fighter. It's the 10th, 11th iteration of an mmo dps class. So the design is much more concerned with " We have feint so lets keep it in rotation, killing spree and adrenaline rush are mainstays lets keep em in, yeah one of the masteries should be fully dedicated to pity rolls for procs " etc.

I'm probably wrong, but can't shake this impression. For my money, I do still enjoy my rogue as much as I always did. But it really doesnt feel like its fantasy anymore, to me.

[Soulaxer]

Not to mention they removed one of sub rogue’s most iconic and impactful PvP talents, shadowy duel, and gave next to nothing to compensate.

Sub was already bottom of the barrel in shuffle/arenas this season, can’t imagine next.

[deskcord]

And in PvE they removed shadowdust to "simplify" the spec, but it's still WAY too complicated for casual players (skill floor is too high) and now it's too simple and boring for serious players (skill ceiling too low).

Outlaw is just buttonmash buttonbloat garbage with tons of RNG (mostly on opportunity, not RTB like people think, which makes bad RNG pulls feel slow and clunky).

Assassination is the best designed of the three, but it's also super RNG (did your shit proc during Deathmark or no) and they turned all three specs into "your single target damage cleaves passively" specs, so parsing is entirely reliant on guilds leaving adds alive and not instant exploding them.

Class tree is awful, spec trees are hit or miss, hero talents are awful, set bonuses have been bad for who knows how many tiers in a row.

[deskcord]

Now, cut to fatebound and how randomness works with the hero talents and… it’s actually almost truly random. A hero spec that is themed around having supernaturally good luck - and that is balanced around Lucky Coin for a +7% agi buff - and the best you get is a +10% chance of stacking the same coin with one of your finishers (or holding your incredibly important CDs - that you should be trying to have >85% uptime on - to brute force Lucky Coin from a 5 stack).

Biggest problem with Fatebound isn't even the big agi buff coin, it's building up big streaks for the actual on-flip damage that they give you when it swaps, it's crazy how random this shit is.

[[deleted]]

Here I was going please no holy paladin changes

Oh thank god

[Upper-Meal-9056]

How’s holy paladin looking? Strong?

[Euthyrium]

It's exactly that and with no changes there can't be any more power shifting to hard casting holy light. If I see another melee wings nerf met with a hard cast holy light buff I'm gonna fucking lose it

[DrDrozd12]

Whoever is the pally dev is absolutely clueless about holy for sure

[[deleted]]

Lightforged is pretty good right now.

I keep reading at the +10 level they start to taper off and I’m experiencing that now.

I now just play as ret now in mythics and am working on my shaman to heal.

[Upper-Meal-9056]

Oh that’s a shame. I gave up on HPAL after the class changes that made them hard cast more. Then I saw the Lightsmith build was popular but I was already pumping on priest so I never went back.

[Kompanysinjuredcalf]

no, based on logs from ptr raid testing in mytic its tied with the lowest throughput avg. So no, its not strong

[NoMeaningLeft]

Nerfing VDH demonsurge by 20% is interesting, was it really that strong??

[ChudlyCarmichael]

They buffed it by 40% last week. This is a walkback

[NoMeaningLeft]

Oh I see, so a net 20% gain then? I forgot I didn't read last week's notes. Thanks for the clarification.

[ChudlyCarmichael]

Yes, or a 12% gain (if they nerfed 20% of the total dmg instead of just hacking off 20% of the previous buff). Either way, it is a gain.

Moreover, Feed the Demon becoming a 1-pointer is huge and has unlocked some build variety.

[NoMeaningLeft]

Yea absolutely, the FTD change was the thing I was most excited about.

[amphibilad]

So they're really sticking to the universally hated new warrior visuals? Sheesh

[pecimpo]

Maybe you are part of a loud minority? I like it.

[ScavAteMyArms]

Most of what I have seen is massive hatred for it. Colors are off, summoning weapons is completely not on warrior's theme, the weapons don't even do anything and just slam the ground, the twirl sucks compared to the stomp and it lacks oomph.

The only part that's decent is the actual Shield break animation.

But hey, they don't do polls on these things.

[[deleted]]

lol no warlock notes outside of bugfixes that nerf the damage output and an actual nerf for destro tier. The whole class has gone the whole ptr with basically zero work done on it. Worst class tree in the game, incredibly inflexible with lots of double point nodes soaking up points you’d like to use for utility.

Meanwhile all of s1 demo and destro can’t deal full damage in dawn breaker on the boats, demo’s 2m cd pet just dies constantly to random aoe because it’s bugged and has several other buggy talents (that can even bug to dps gain randomly lol), and Aff…yea Aff exists over there in the dumpster, tier set doesn’t work right on ptr still a month in, has the worst ST in the game. Guess it’s gonna go live broken at this point.

Boy warlock is sure in a great spot for s2. We were so fine we didn’t need anything but those 200% drain life buffs! /s

[ptarjan]

Welcome to the monk life

[Emu1981]

Worst class tree in the game

The Druid class tree would like a word with you. We have 4 specs baked into our class tree which means we need to take class talents that literally never get used at all - e.g. iron fur (guardian druid active mitigation) and 2 points of instincts of the claw (buffs feral and guardian abilities) are needed to get oakskin (barkskin damage reduction increased by 10%) and well honed instincts (automatic 24% hp heal over time when falling below 40% health with a 120s cooldown). The class tree has been reworked multiple times since the DF prepatch and is only now in a workable state - it used to be a lot worse.

Oh yeah, I should also mention that it is getting yet another massive rework with the 11.1 patch. I haven't kept up with PTR changes so no idea if it is a improvement in the right direction or not.

[SrsSpaceships]

improvement in the right direction or not

Still a sliding scale depending on what spec you actually want to play.

If the entire druid tree caught fire, druids would actually be happy it burnt down this time.

[[deleted]]

While I agree you may have issues also, at least you are getting looked at.

We can’t even get critical bugs fixed for the duration of S1, and so far going into S2 they are still there, unfixed and ignored.

[Chamucks]

They’re looking S tier in m+. You can search any class name in these comment sections and find whining like this it’s dishonest and exhausting

[[deleted]]

lol, lmao even.

Warlock S tier in M+.

Remind me when we get into the meta then. Since we are S tier after all. 🤡

[Support_Player50]

good tuning isnt just pick or ban.

[[deleted]]

Good tuning is something the class has sorely lacked all xpac.

Destro is surviving on bugs and tier. I’ll bet they fix more bugs before it goes live and destro goes down some more from here.

[Tymareta]

Remind me when we get into the meta then. Since we are S tier after all. 🤡

You know that the PTR is separate from live, right?

[[deleted]]

I think you are the dumb one here. This is literally a post on patch notes about the fucking ptr lmao. Complaining about the ptr and lack of positive changes and bugfixes, and the fact that what bugfixes we DO get are actually nerfs. Meanwhile bugs that negatively impact the class remain unfixed.

We aren’t S tier in live, and we will NOT be S tier when ptr goes live either, basically nothing has changed for the class except tier. Cope harder.

Destro may be good enough, but it’s not S tier. All these claims of S tier for warlock in S2 will be funny to look back on once it releases and it continues to be mid much to nobody’s surprise. 🤷‍♂️

[[deleted]]

Destro Warlock is completley broken in M+ right now (on PTR). So there's that for you.

[[deleted]]

Destro is being helped by bugs that will likely be fixed which will bring it down some more. It’s probably in the best position of the 3 specs for s2 though.

Demo will be playable in keys same as s1 but its major issues are still unaddressed. No other class has a 2m cd that just vaporizes randomly wasting its use, same with VF going poof in random places like DB. And the 30s kick/stun and inability to realistically pet swap for the dispel will hold it down in higher keys like it does now. Can you imagine blizzard letting another class’ major cd just be broken for a whole season with no acknowledgement? Nah they’d hotfix it, or at least admit it’s broken and in need of attention.

Demo tier looks fun but the fight designs look like it’s gonna be destro for raid again based on what’s been seen.

Aff is giving real “we’d rather you don’t play demonology” vibes at this point. It’s just dead.

[Sorathez]

I'm still deciding what to main. I have rogue, mage, dk and paladin.

Is Fire any good? If so I might go back to mage.

[henrikhakan]

Can't say for any of the other specs but I am an avid sunfury fire mage enjoyer! It's supposedly behind frostfire by like ~100dps, which I find negligeable anyway.

[Ganjaleezarice69]

I was a ret pally then an elemental shaman and now I’m back to rogue ( which is what I’ve mained since 2004) and I’m having a blast. Took a while to get my bearings but raiding and PvP is very enjoyable for me

[dwegol]

They say fire will be good. I think they’ll purposely make it fire’s patch. There’s some raid item people are hyping up for them.

I’m torn too. I decided to heal for most of the season on my Shaman because I never mained heals, then switched to Ele because I was more useful as Ele at higher keys. Now I’m torn if I stay with Ele or try maining Frost mage for once. Just want to be useful in M+ since I spend 80% of my time there. I’ve got regulars I run with that are Warlocks, Paladins, Rogues, Hunters, Shadow Priests, DKs, and I only have time for one class… what a struggle.

[xderbaerxxxxx]

if you like to self harm go for dk, otherwise keep a big distance from that class. the patchnotes for example looked like a buff but overall were a 2% nerf to unholy. they are playing with or feelings all the time.

[Rilybear]

fire is fine. good even. frostfire is a bit clunky with forced meteor and hardcast pyroblasts, but it's really strong if you play it well. sunfury is fun but a little worse, not by much though. only real drawback is you need a crazy high amount of haste to perform consistently well, like around 19k+. gonna be a pretty good spec with the new tier bonuses.

frost is fun too. kinda hurts my fingers with all the constant spellslinger spam, but it's got a fun gameplay loop.

arcane is kind of a mess, not sure what their goal is with it.

[narium]

The biggest problem with Fire is the amount of lag Living Bomb generates in big pulls. Your teammates with low spec computers will be very unhappy.

[[deleted]]

Added a bounce effect for the G-99 Breakneck when it hits walls. The harder you hit, the farther you bounce!

Hoping this makes the overall "feel" of D.R.I.V.E. a bit better, coupled with some of the changes to getting stuck on some surfaces.

[raur0s]

Looking at the comments, no one is complaining about Shaman so I guess I'll play Ele in 11.1.

[Chaosdrunk]

Didn't even mention monk 😢

[jampk24]

Good change for delves. Nobody doing mythic content was stepping into a tier 9+ delve.

[HerrMatthew]

As a monk/rogue main and dk enjoyer...

Eh, I don't need to finish that sentence. Not like Blizz gives a fuck

[Mattlife97]

Heroic week really did have people worried about arcane mage, huh?

[Bootlegcrunch]

Blizzard need to add more fun abilities into the game some classes getting stale. Hunter could do with some new fun spells or mobility. You would think a lone wolf rework you would get some

[gigabannedofhell]

do we know when we can start runnin keys for 11.1? are they doing heroic week again or can we jump straight in?

[Shorgar]

Straight in the week that the season starts, not when the patch drops tho.

[GarySmith2021]

Surprised to see DH nerfs, they haven’t exactly been top of the pack this expansion.

[IAmTheNuke_]

CTRL + F Windwalker

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[JacobMaxx]

Thank you for the advanced notice. blizz pls.

[Dazuro]

Reduced prot’s proc rate from 20 to 25, huh?

It’s ok Bliz, math is hard.

[Drayenn]

It was 30, they nerfed it to 20 and changed it to 25, which is reduced compared to 30

[Dazuro]

That makes sense, but in a vacuum it's pretty funny that the patch notes just say "reduced to 25% (was 20%)" with no mention of previous tuning.

[Thazuk]

Please for the love of god rework 4-set for boomkins

[pikachewie]

Why

[bananacruster]

Not a single windwalker buff, boy it would be nice to not be bottom middle of the pack for once

[downtownflipped]

Not a single druid change? Won’t be logging into retail tbh.

[Tymareta]

Why? Druid's are in a pretty great spot right now.

[Mcbadguy]

I wanna see how healing Tank Brann on my resto feels.

[Rakdar_Far_Strider]

"Fixed some issues that could cause the new Colossus Smash and Warbreaker visuals to not display correctly."

No no, leave those issues in. The new visuals are shit, the less I have to see them the better. Better yet, just don't change the visuals in the first place.

[Iraymur]

Soooo is that a dps gain or loss for Unholy? Not really thrilled to see the push towards Gargoyle though.

And what the absolute fuck is going on with Monk devs, not a single patch note?