wow Blue Posts Round-up: Feb 28

[Stan 5,240]

Another round-up covering the Affliction Warlocks, Druid Class Mount Form, Elite Ensembles and changes to Holy Priest's PvP talent Spirit of the Redeemer.

Druid Class Mount (More details)

Functions just like a standard shapeshift so no cast time, immune to CC and you can carry others on your back.

Muffinus (Source)

Good news! Archdruid's Lunarwing Form operates like a shapeshift in terms of benefits (instant cast, immune to polymorph, etc.) but also counts as an additional mount in your mount journal.

As for the second question, the movement speed bonus from Broken Isles Pathfinder, Part One does not apply to flying speed, but druid Travel Form does benefit from the ground movement speed bonus in 7.2 (and this should be active on PTR)! You can, indeed, carry others on your back in this form. Enjoy! :)

Elite Ensembles

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Holy Priest - PvP Talent Discussion

Spirit of the Redeemer will now reset upon death in Patch 7.2.

Phalanx (Source)

We really like the idea about resetting Spirit of the Redeemer's cooldown upon death. We just snuck it in for 7.2!

As for Spirit of the Redeemer, we agree that talent competes a little too directly with Ray of Hope in what it's trying to do. It'll likely get some changes... eventually.

Affliction Warlock Update

The discussion from yesterday continues, with the subject of specs within specs.

Sigma (Source)

Bear with me. I get that the idea is for various specs to excel in different situations. That's one way to approach the class design. But, let's assume, for argument's sake, that there are 3 ways to build an affliction lock, due to talents (similarly for demo or destro).

Why would you use the talents to create the "specialization" inside of the spec itself, and largely let the spec determine how the class feels? Meaning, why couldnt each warlock spec have excellent single target, "cleave" or aoe dps, (via various talent builds) and let the player pick which spec he wants to play based on how that rotation feels? 

I happen to LOVE using MG and tunneling. I like for cleave i can throw out a few agonys, throw out a seed, and then go back to channeling on a high priority mob. I do not want to manage 2-3 dots on multiple targets very much in order to do relevant dps. I'm worried that because I'm affliction, you'll eventually revert to me being completely "meh" on single target if I'm not multi-dotting. I hate that idea. 

Help me understand why achieving that (equal balance via talents between given specs) is difficult to do from a balance standpoint? Why does one spec have to be the "single target" spec, one a multi-dot, one a havoc.... etc?

Please don't kill what I've come to really like about affliction. I've seen the "de-homogenization" at work recently (with holy paladin design from the WoD rotational style) and I just think the "variety" is better served in talents than it is changing the spec design every few months.

The answer is probably that there should be some mix of both (quite possibly a mix we're still trying to settle into the right place, given that Legion greatly expanded the use of spec-specific talents that change your rotation). Both of the following are good things to have happen in the game:

1) You really like the MG playstyle, and feel good when you're using it well, and feel extra good when that happens when it's also the highest-DPS talent for the situation.

2) A fight happens to be perfect for Affliction (perhaps that should be sustained multi-DoT, but it doesn't matter right now what it is, just that some situation is) and you feel good as you shine on that fight, including making your raidmates of other specs/class temporarily jealous of you.

#2 is more controversial I believe, but it remains true even in a world with some nontrivial barrier to swapping specs. Yes, one complication is the fact that some players will always care enough about min/maxing to put in the effort to overcome the barrier and play the "best" spec as often as possible. That's okay though; in fact, it's good to have it be up to players to make that choice of whether it's worth it for them. In 7.2, we're even reducing some of the oft-cited barriers to playing multiple specs through changes to the artifact and legendary systems.

Without delving deeper into those issues, the point is that if you see your Demonology friend doing more DPS than you on one fight, and you do more DPS than him on the next fight, that is a fundamentally good experience to have players coming across in the game. It adds texture and meaning to the choice of specs. And on a more basic level, feeling sometimes slightly advantaged, and sometimes slightly envious of what someone else can do, is a much richer experience than feeling neither of those.

[Ancalagon 35]

Quote

Without delving deeper into those issues, the point is that if you see your Demonology friend doing more DPS than you on one fight, and you do more DPS than him on the next fight, that is a fundamentally good experience to have players coming across in the game. It adds texture and meaning to the choice of specs. And on a more basic level, feeling sometimes slightly advantaged, and sometimes slightly envious of what someone else can do, is a much richer experience than feeling neither of those.

I disagree.  I was forced to stop playing my favorite class/spec (combat/outlaw), that I have been playing since vanilla, because it was no longer viable in any raid environment (still viable in mythic+ content, exclusively).  Due to the design structure of how the class, as a whole, scaled with gear, in order for me to remain competitive as a rogue, I was being forced to play assassination (which is something that I did not want to do).  As such, I felt compelled to play one of Blizzard's "flavor of the month" classes, just to remain competitive on progression fights.  And while I am extremely happy with playing a ret paladin, now... the point remains, that the class/spec that gave me the most enjoyment was made inferior to specs that I did not enjoy playing, in every situation outside of mythic+ content.

 

So, this ebb and flow of being competitively "advantageous" and "envious" depending on specific fights, when comparing specs of the same class, may look good on paper and sound good on the forums, but it is not what is actually happening in practice (universally, at least.  There are some classes where this ideal is being recognized, but, across the board, there are some class specs that are simply too inferior to be competitive.).

 

Edit:

But I also realize that this is a tuning process and that the balancing issues will likely be normalized in 7.2 and beyond.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Ancalagon