wow PvP Tuning Changes for Week of 5/9

[Starym 3,800]

 

Guardian Druids are getting some significant nerfs as Havoc DHs, Brewmasters and Fury Warrs get changes as well in PvP, with the tweaks going live early next week. A lot of the changes are focused around preventing multiple triggers off of artifact abilities.

Arempy (source)

We're going to be making a few PvP tuning changes early next week, with a focus on Guardian Druids. Due to how close these changes will be to the next North American Qualifier tournament, we wanted to give everyone advanced warning. These changes are still in test (and could change), and will not be applied to live servers until Tuesday.

Demon Hunter - Havoc:
- Chaotic Onslaught can no longer cause Chaos Strike to trigger more than one additional Chaos Strike in PvP situations.
- Rain from Above will now properly suppress all root effects when cast, such as Frost Nova.

Druid - Guardian:
- Pawsitive Outlook can no longer cause Thrash to trigger more than one additional Thrash in PvP situations.
- Sharpened Claws increases Thrash and Swipe damage by 25%, down from 50%.
- Frenzied Regeneration now heals for 25% of damage taken in the last 5 seconds, down from 50%.
-PvP Template Agility reduced by 5%.
-PvP Template Stamina reduced by 5%.

Monk - Brewmaster:
- Stave Off can no longer cause Keg Smash to trigger more than one additional Keg Smash in PvP situations.

Warrior - Fury:
- Oathblood can no longer cause Bloodthirst to trigger more than one additional Bloodthirst in PvP situations.

[Yridaa 490]

I am very sad to see that Blizzard is still having issues with balancing Guardian Druids in PVP. I don't pvp much at all (Only for the artifact appearance...) and I don't even play a Druid, for those wondering about my bias!

Guardian Druids (And even when it was still called Feral in vanilla up to Cataclysm) have a very long history of being either overwhelmingly powerful (Just wouldn't die) or dying in just a few hits. In some xpacs it was generally accepted that just being a resto druid and going into your bear form would make you far more tankier than guardian druid themselves, with all the hots in your toolkit and all.

 

The latter is no longer viable (Although resto druids in bear form definitely still become tanky; it's not on the level of Guardian specced Druids.) due to not being able to take tank stats in your gear anymore (With a few exceptions such as armor enchants). "Back in the day" such as WotLK; you could be crit immune even as a resto druid (Defense Rating!). Of course, in pvp that functions quite differently with people having higher crit chances than PvE content. But I mentioned that to emphasize how much gear went into play to make "Resto druid as a bear tank" viable.

 

While this is still just PTR, Blizzard isn't known for making last minute changes. They'd rather use a hotfix on live later to balance it out. That said though, these changes are very significant to the point where I'm wondering if they can still compete with the other tanks.

[Oxygen 446]

I feel like changing these chance-based abilities into "your 6th trash/blood fury/chaotic onslaught/etc triggers twice" would solve the issue of redundant triggers and lucky or unlucky streaks altogether, on top of making haste a bit more interesting as a stat.

[PatrickHenry 293]

1 hour ago, Oxygen said:

I feel like changing these chance-based abilities into "your 6th trash/blood fury/chaotic onslaught/etc triggers twice" would solve the issue of redundant triggers and lucky or unlucky streaks altogether, on top of making haste a bit more interesting as a stat.

Very novel approach.

[VictorVakaras 83]

6 hours ago, Oxygen said:

I feel like changing these chance-based abilities into "your 6th trash/blood fury/chaotic onslaught/etc triggers twice" would solve the issue of redundant triggers and lucky or unlucky streaks altogether, on top of making haste a bit more interesting as a stat.

That goes against Blizzard's RNG for everything everywhere policy.

[Oxygen 446]

10 hours ago, PatrickHenry said:

Very novel approach.

Sarcasm doesn't translate very well over text, unfortunately.

[Yridaa 490]

1 hour ago, Oxygen said:

Sarcasm doesn't translate very well over text, unfortunately.

I'm not sure if it was sarcasm, he did press the like button on his post. Also, while I wouldn't personally call it novel, there certainly aren't a lot of skills in WoW that say "Your Xth cast of Y will cause Y to trigger an additional time". It is overwhelmingly a "X% to cast Y twice".

 

I would like much less RNG based rotations. It doesn't have to be too easy or anything, but there already is a lot of RNG going on and having a bit more reliable procs is definitely something I'd personally like to see.

[Valks 2,375]

17 hours ago, Oxygen said:

Sarcasm doesn't translate very well over text, unfortunately.

Don't feel bad, Oxy. I understood it. It's okay.

[PatrickHenry 293]

On 5/6/2017 at 10:30 PM, Yridaa said:

there certainly aren't a lot of skills in WoW that say "Your Xth cast of Y will cause Y to trigger an additional time".

I would like much less RNG based rotations.

A la "Heroes of the Storm" Karazhim

Edited May 9, 2017 by PatrickHenry

[Floristix 4]

And again Blizzard lost control over all these chances, proccs and itemlevel growing. With this weird math behind this, there will never be balance ... and no noteable class-concept since 7.0.