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By Staff
Blizzard has pushed what appears to be the final big round of class tuning ahead of the Phase 4 release next week!
(Source)
Greetings,
We’ve pushed another round of adjustments to PTR this afternoon with some additional
changes to Mage, Warlock, Paladin, Warrior, Shaman, and Rogue. At this point we are going to be slowing down major changes to stabilize the build in preparation for the patch launching next week. This PTR cycle has been incredibly useful and we really appreciate all of the feedback we’ve received. While not all individual suggestions have been directly implemented, we’ve spent a ton of time reading your thoughts and it’s been a very helpful tool to allow us to focus on addressing some of the root causes of the feedback you are providing. Thank you!
Mage
Pyroblast now has no mana cost if cast using a Hot Streak proc. Brain Freeze now also makes Balefire Bolt instant and have no mana cost. The base damage of Frostfire Bolt has been reduced by 16% Developer’s Notes: We’ve seen extremely high performance from mages on the PTR and while we are comfortable with mages doing lots of damage, we wanted to tone down Frostfire Bolt slightly while making Hot Streak procs even more satisfying and also giving Balefire Bolt a better interaction with Brain Freeze. Paladin
Malleable Protection now grants 4 Attack Power per excess point of defense when Holy
Shield is used instead of Spell Power. Developer’s Notes: Many paladins have pointed out that they would like to see the
additional benefit from defense when using Holy Shield to increase attack power rather than spell power and while we aren’t going in that direction for now, as a compromise, we are allowing Malleable Protection rune to essentially grant the same desired effect in addition to the baseline spell power benefit that Holy Shield grants from defense. This should make this rune more attractive to tanking paladins who it is designed for and still allow paladins using holy shield to gain a chunk of the Spellpower they would lose when not using Sheathe of Light. Rogue
Mutilate’s damage reduced from 100% to 80% weapon damage, and it’s bonus damage decreased by 20%. Envenom’ base damage reduced by 20% and Attack Power contribution to
damage reduced by 20%. Developer’s Notes: Similar to Mages we are becoming concerned about the overall damage output of rogues in relation to other classes going into Phase 4. Mutilate has dominated the last few phases and while its still likely to slightly edge out other choices such as Saber Slash, this should help tone Rogues ouput down slightly while also helping to bring mutilate more in line with other Rogue options.
Shaman
Way of Earth now reduces to the range of Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, Lava Burst,
Healing Wave, and Chain Heal by 20 yards. Developer’s Notes: Shaman has become quite opporessive in PvP and the usage of
Way of Earth by Restoration and Elemental shamans contributes heavily to this. This
change should not lower the overall output potential of shamans in PvP who are using this rune, but it should make applying that damage significantly less flexible and more dangerous for the Shaman themselves. We will continue to monitor shaman performance in PvP and make additional adjustments as needed. Molten Blast now gains additional damage equal to 14.3% of Fire Spell
Power. Please note that this extra damage is not reflected in the tooltip at this time. Warlock
Shadowflame has seen several adjustments: Shadowflame is no longer mutually exclusive with Unstable Affliction. Shadowflame now triggers improved shadowbolt. Shadowflame also increases the number of Improved Shadowbolt charges to 10. The Demonic Pact effect now applies to the raid group rather than just the party. The amount of bonus spell damage provided by Demonic Knowledge is now 3% (down
from 10%) The damage and stamina of the Felguard have been increased by approximately 20% Grimoire of Synergy has been adjusted and now has a 10% chance to proc and grants a 10% damage bonus. The damage penalty of Shadow Bolt Volley has been reduced to 5% (was previously 20%) A New ability has been added to the game via a spell book: Fel Armor Surrounds the caster with fel energy, increasing spell damage and healing by 60 plus additional spell damage and healing equal to 50% of your Spirit. In addition, you regain 2% of your maximum health every 5 sec. Only one type of Armor spell can be active on the Warlock at any time. Lasts 30 minutes. The Mark of Chaos rune has been moved to the feet slot and now activates when any
Curse except Curse of the Elements or Curse of Shadow is used. The Soul Siphon rune has been moved to the back slot. Immolation Aura has been redesigned: Immolation Aura now triggers from being attacked rather than as a periodic effect. This cannot occur more than once per second, and does not require the attack to hit. Immolation Aura now also increases fire damage by 10%. The Incinerate Rune has been moved to the wrist slot. Developer’s Notes: After our previous round of adjustments to Warlock, many players correctly pointed out that Shadowflame was still mutually exclusive with Unstable Affliction which was an unintended oversight. We’ve fixed that and additionally added an interaction with Improved Shadow Bolt to allow Shadowflame crits to also proc the increased damage effect. Improved Shadow Bolt wasn’t utilized heavily prior to this change as the amount of free time for Shadow Bolt filler was relatively low. Lastly, the low number of charges on Improved Shadow Bolt didn’t make it very usable, so we are increasing the number of charges gained from 4 to 10 with Shadowflame which should increase the overall usefulness of the talent in group settings. We also hope to see this create some synergy that Shadow Priests in particular can see benefit from as well.
Warrior
Thunder Clap now gains additional damage equal to 5% of Attack Power. Please note that this extra damage is not reflected in the tooltip at this time. -
By Staff
Here's the final round of class changes in this week's SoD P4 build, as Druids and Shamans get some attention.
Druid, Shaman (Source)
We have one last round of changes before the weekend that will go out after the realms finish restarting this afternoon:
Druid
Survival Instincts: Now also increases healing done by your spells by 20% while active. Developer’s Notes: Pure healing druids have correctly pointed out that they are without a compelling rune option for the Boots slot. Allowing Survival Instincts to act as an on-demand healing cooldown helps fill this gap and provide Druids with another powerful healing tool. Shaman
Earth Shield is no longer exclusive with Lightning Shield. Developer’s Notes: Earth Shield has seen its value increase with Shamanistic Rage becoming a baseline ability. While this is a great improvement, tank shamans now often feel like they at a disadvantage when playing with a Restoration Shaman and vice versa, because of how a Tank wants their Lightning Shield active for their wrist rune, which makes them ineligible Earth Shield targets. We’re reducing the friction here by allowing Earth Shield to be active at the same time as Lightning Shield. Riptide healing can now trigger the Power Surge rune when used. Developer’s Notes: In the Waist slot, Restoration has typically been taking Power Surge, standing within 20 yards of the boss to Flame Shock, and then look for procs to cast an instant Chain Heal. We think reimagining power surge as a more generalist rune and enabling its usage for Restoration shamans to use using their normal toolkit while also playing at a standard healer range of 30+ yards away is a great way to increase quality of life for healing Shamans that select this rune. The chance for Static Shock to trigger when using a two-handed weapon is now 12% and the chance to trigger with one-handed weapons remains 6%. The Shield Mastery additional benefit from Defense now triggers off an any shock spell and not just Flame Shock. The Shield Mastery Defense benefit changed from Attack Power to Spell Power: Developer’s Note Even with Mental Dexterity in the mix, Spell Power over Attack Power feels like a more thematic conversion for Tank Shamans. Most of a Shaman’s threat is also not in things that benefit from Attack Power directly, so this change helps the shaman tanking kit operate more synergistically. The additional threat caused by Way of Earth has been increased to 65% (up from 50%). -
By Staff
After deliberation and player feedback, Blizzard have decided not to go ahead with the twice-weekly raid lockout for Molten Core in Season of Discovery Phase 4. World Bosses and Onyxia will still have the discussed twice-weekly lockout.
Lockout (Source)
Greetings,
As mentioned in previous communications, the team has been discussing the topic of Twice-Weekly lockouts coming in Phase 4 of Season of Discovery and we’ve decided not to move forward with this lockout interval for Molten Core. Molten Core will utilize the standard 7-day lockout period, based on your feedback.
We will be keeping the Twice-Weekly lockout in place for Lord Kazzak, Azuregos, and Onyxia, however. We feel that those quicker, single-boss raid encounters feel appropriate for this interval, especially considering that Onyxia herself operated on a 5-day lockout timer throughout Original WoW.
As always, we appreciate your feedback on this topic and will continue to evaluate things and listen as we move through the content phases and make additional adjustments as necessary.
The team is really looking forward to having you join us in Phase 4 in just a few short weeks!
Thank you!
-The WoW Classic Dev Team
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By Staff
We have some more development notes for this week's SoD P4 PTR, as Blizzard add a lot of changes to Warriors, focusing on Raging Blow, Consumed by Rage, Bloodsurge and the Endless Rage rune.
Warrior (Source)
In addition to the changes above we will soon be deploying the following changes to the Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR:
Warrior
Raging Blow has been adjusted: The damage of Raging Blow increased to 100% of weapon damage. Raging blow cooldown is reduced by 1 second when you use another melee ability while enraged. Developer’s Notes: Warriors have been given more and more ways to become Enraged, but few tools to use once enraged. With Raging Blow being rather weak, Enraged Regeneration competing with Rallying Cry, and Rampage being in competition with other runes we felt it was time to give it a buff and play more into these runes having more depth to them by themselves. Consumed by Rage also makes whirlwind strike with with both equipped weapons while Enraged. Developer’s Notes: This additional effect on Consumed by rage helped give it an identity where before it lacked one. Frenzied Assault was already a good two-handed rune that works well for Warriors that want to swing their two-hander more frequently, so having this be a dedicated dual wielding rune made sense. Bloodsurge now causes Slam to hit with both equipped melee weapons. Developer’s Note: As with the note above, this change is intended to give Bloodsurge a unique identity since it is so similar to Precise Timing. The Endless Rage rune has been moved to the head slot. Developer’s Note: Endless Rage has been on a slot where it competes against a lot of really fun runes which tend to make this have a relatively low selection rate. We feel that moving it to a slot where Fury DPS Warriors have felt they have no option makes a lot of sense. This will increase their ability to press their buttons, and give higher resource generation which is especially welcome for times when world buffs are not available. -
By Staff
This week's Season of Discovery Phase 4 PTR build focuses on Paladin and Rogue changes.
Season of Discovery Phase 4 will be released worldwide on July 11th.
(Source)
Testing Focus
We have a new PTR build going up soon (55391) and we’ve included a few more classes’ adjustments today with that build. We again increased the damage and health of Testwerk for the PTR as well to help with more accurate testing. Lastly, we’ve also added a World Buff consumable to the Consumables vendor on PTR.
We still plan to deploy additional class adjustments today which we hope to get out before the weekend, barring unforeseen circumstances.
Paladin
Hammer of the Righteous damage has been increased to three times weapon damage (up from 2x weapon damage). Art of War now reduces the remaining cooldown of Exorcism by 2 seconds on critical hit (previously was 1 second). Developer’s Note: The old version of Art of war did allow for a playstyle that was unique to SoD where a fast two-handed weapon had a place in the game and while we’d like to move away from “exo spam” one button playstyle, we still love the idea of the build. The previous adjustments to Art of War also hit protection especially hard so we felt it appropriate to adjust this to still allow exorcism to be used rapidly without it completely dominating the rotation of both retribution and protection paladins. The Divine Sacrifice rune has been replaced with Hand of Sacrifice: Causes target party or raid member to transfer 30% of damage taken to the caster. Lasts 12 seconds or until the caster has transferred 100% of their maximum health. 2 minute cooldown. Developer’s Note: The version of Divine Sacrifice we introduced to Season of Discovery has a lot of drawbacks, and it is very situational on a slot filled with other situationally good utility. We’re changing this to be more like the familiar Hand of Sacrifice from future expansions. Blessing of Sacrifice is rather weak in Vanilla WoW aside from avoiding CC in PvP with no cooldown, and it also removes the target’s Blessing. This should be more generally useful with fewer drawbacks than Divine Sacrifice (or Blessing of Sacrifice, for that matter). Activating Holy Shield no longer provides attack power, but now provides 2 spell power per point of defense instead. Developer’s Note: Protection Paladins gain enormous value from Sheath of Light, and Defense giving Attack Power only furthered the value of that rune. So, we’re swapping the bonus Defense provides Paladins from Attack Power to Spell Power to further enable and encourage the usage of other runes such as Malleable Protection, which has also been adjusted. The Malleable Protection rune now doubles the spell power bonus granted when activating Holy Shield. Developer’s Note: In the same vein as the last Dev Note, this is about having players feel less bad about taking their Defensive while adding value to the Defense stat. Spell Power is also a bit more thematic than Attack Power for Protection Paladin. The Vindicator rune has been replaced with a new rune: Shock and Awe Holy Shock now grants the paladin 1 additional spell power per point of Intellect for 30 seconds on use. (replace with actual tooltip text) Developer’s Note: The Vindicator rune was just too strong in relation to the other options in this slot in its previous state so we’re adding a slightly different version of it to the Talent itself. But that left us with a Rune open, and an opportunity to give the “shockadin” playstyle another option for players wishing to pursue that niche. The Vindication talent now reduce the target’s attack power by 70/140/210 and grant 3/6/10% additional attack power to the paladin when it triggers. Lasts 30 seconds. Developer’s Note: The original intent of Vindicator was to add some value to a Talent that was functionally unusable in PvE in Original WoW. As a result we’re moving the portion of attack power reduction and the AP increase to the actual Vindication talent itself. Shield of Righteousness now causes damage equal to two times the paladin’s shield block value plus an additional amount of damage based on attack power. Developer’s Note: The damage scaling on this ability was not satisfactory so we doubled the contribution that shield block value adds to the damage. Rogue
Slaughter from the Shadows: Now reduces Backstab and Ambush cost by 30 (up from 20) and now also increases damage Backstab and Ambush do to non-player controlled targets by 60%. Mutilate is dominant in PvE and we know some players have a deep fondness for backstab so the intent here is to bring Backstab up with new synergies. This rune may be niche and situational due to the fact that it competes with Deadly Brew but we’ll keep an eye on usage. Unfair Advantage now also triggers on Parries, always hits your current target, and grants 1 combo point when it triggers. Developer’s Notes: This is to give tanks a way to get Combo Points to maintain their 2 maintenance finishers without having to completely rely on Honor Among Thieves. This accomplishes two things: 1) allows you to feel like Avoidance further increases your damage output. 2) Increases the potential for Rune combination diversity. You can do Honor Among Thieves + Carnage (with the Carnage change later on) or Combat Potency/Focused Attacks + Unfair Advantage to have a way to gain combo points, and a way to keep the energy flowing. Shiv has been replaced with a new rune: Cutthroat You no longer need to be behind your target to Backstab, Ambush, or Garrote, and you have a 15% chance when you Backstab to make your next Ambush not require being in Stealth. Known issue: These abilities still trigger an error stating you must be behind your target. This is visual only and we will correct that in a later update. Developer’s Notes: With the change to Poisoned Knife to have no dead zone, Shiv stood to fall even further behind compared to the other runes in this slot. With Saber Slash and Mutilate having their identities locked in with damage over time effects, we wanted to add a “Big numbers” option to this slot for those who enjoy Backstab and Ambush. Main Gauche now grants 100% Parry chance until you next Parry an attack instead of 10% Parry. Now also reduces the Energy cost of Sinister Strike by 20 for the next 10 sec. Combo points granted reduced to 1 (down from 3). Developer’s Notes: In line with theme of glove runes and dominance, we understand Mutilate has been essentially the default choice for many builds, and we want to open that up more. Creating a synergy with Sinister Strike made sense to us here, since Main Gauche is a longer cooldown and we don’t feel comfortable increasing the rate at which a Rogue will able to avoid attacks and accelerating rogues reaching a full avoidance cap which could prove problematic. We think this version of Main Gauche allows the player to control their avoidance, creates more energy play outside of just Adrenaline Rush, and may allow more builds to open up. This additionally keeps the efficacy against bosses with 2.0 attack speed essentially allowing the rogue to avoid 1 extra attack every 10 swings (10%). Carnage: Now also heals the Rogue for 40% of all damage done by Rupture (or Crimson Tempest). Developer’s Note: Adding some sustain to Rogue could be problematic, but we also feel like Rupture has two uses in an Envenom World – stop another Rogue from restealthing, and to bleed down a Plate wearer. Outside of that, Rupture doesn’t have a ton of great application. So instead of adding more damage to it, we want to push its identity out in a way it doesn’t compete 1 to 1 with other finishers. This also gives Tank Rogues an opportunity to opt into Carnage over Unfair Advantage and adding Rupture to their rotation. Fan of Knives damage reduced to 50% weapon damage (75% with daggers). Developer’s Note: Fan of Knives is an incredibly synergistic ability and there are more synergies than before for Rogues. This version may look weaker than say the Wrath of the Lich King version, but Focused Attacks is 50% more energy restored in SoD than in Wrath, Deadly Brew will apply Deadly and Instant Poison from both weapons on Fan of Knives, and occult poison will increase the damage of your instant poisons when you stack it up with longer AoE pulls. So, we feel very comfortable taking down the base damage of Fan of Knives without negatively impacting AoE threat or damage relative to similar AoE abilities. The three cloak runes are similar ways to do AoE damage, and with Carnage now working on Crimson Tempest for healing off AoE targets it now has distinct identity as well. We’ll continue to monitor these three runes and adjust as needed.
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