WOD alpha: A turning point since TBC?

[Kruschpakx4]

Its alpha so we don't know numbers yet but we have already tons of information how the game changes, enough to make a post about what is good and bad for us.
I'd like to invite everyone to post stuff about how he thinks his team will perform in WOD, obviously I'm going to say something about shamans, however you're welcome to share your list about the team you think could perform well.



Shamans (elemental and enhancement)



Pros:

All three level 100 talents are a great addition to our oneshot potential, extra damage without the need of an extra gcd while bursting
Multistrike is great combos for combos like *spell with travel time*+*spell without travel time* hitting simultaneously
Overall CC remove and diminishing returns merged, list here (http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/13423478/warlords-of-draenor%E2%84%A2-alpha-patch-notes-05-23-2014-5-23-2014#cc_dr)

important stuff: psyfiend gone, ring of peace now incapacitates the enemy for 3 sec instead of 8 sec silience/disarm and presence of mind is an arcane only spell (no more pom ring/sheep from non arcane mages)


PvP trinkets grant immunity to reapplication of an effect from the same spell cast when they break abilities like solar beam.
Spirit shell removed
Cast slowing debuffs gone
Necrotic strike gone
Many instant heals got a cast time which makes oneshots and coordinated burst even more powerful and harder to counter
Shamanistic resolve glyph (extra 30% damage reduction on sham rage and doubled cooldown) against 4 or 5 dps teams
Symbiosis gone (usually makes druids easier to kill)


Cons:

NS/maelstrom cannot make hex instant anymore and hex being an 1,7 sec cast
Bladestorm/shockwave is now in different rows so warriors will have both
Healing tide again restoration only talent
Rogue aoe stealth still not gone ...



Elemental specific:


Pros:

Lightning shield stacks up to 15 charges
Multistrike can trigger lightning shield charges
Elemental attunement buffs multistrike
Quadrupled NS EB Earthshock with 15 ls charges should be a oneshot
Silence immunity while ascendance (new pvp setbonus)
Mana reg increased by 50% to compensate the loss of rolling thunder, however since we cant go pve mode anyway passiv mana reg is always better
lava burst can generate ls charges
Mass spellreflect now replaces spellreflect
Strom elemental totem heals allies within 15 yard range which supports elemental turret mode gameplay
Ring of peace only triggers on harmful spells so we can still drop totems and heal without getting incapacitated a second time
New Spirit walkers grace glyphs, one for 5 sec silence immunity and the other one for cooldown/duration reduction to one minute/7 sec to help out with getting chainlights off to get ls charges


Cons:

Earthquake gone, it was rarely useful though, but was nice to screw up openers from 4/5 dps teams
Chainlight 2 sec cast time will make it harder to stack up to 15 ls charges fast but swg glyph helps and otherwise we use ascendance/lava beam
Elemental focus gone, hurts healing
No more passiv lb while moving but as mentioned already, turret gameplay is supported by storm elemental



Enhancement:


Pros:

Maelstrom perk doubles a spells damage at 5 charges so 100% more damage on instant eb
Spirit wolves are probably getting useful

Glyph of feral spirit (healing of wolves increased by 40%) and ephemeral spirits (cooldown and duration cut in half (1 min cd 15 sec duration)) should provide sick healing, lightning shield or healing stream as third glyph then


Maelstrom glyph is now passive
New flurry effect reduces gcd and cd of stormstrike/lava lash/shocks and unleash elements, probably allows triple stormblast in ascendance but rather doubt it
No longer need to keep searing totem up for increased lava lash damage
Unleash elements perk increases movement speed by 30% for 4 sec
Higher uptime due to many cc removed and some converted to roots which is completely negated by windwalk totem so in the end that means more dps, maelstrom healing and elemental blasts


Cons:

Stormblast probably not as powerful as it was since blizzard sees it as a problem
Mastery no longer increases stormblast and auto hit damage in ascendance but sb damage gets compensated by 30% additional damage when lightning shield is up



So I think I have summed up the important stuff here, tldr version: both specs look good if not great for now, but I'd like to see aoe stealth getting removed too as it was my biggest issue to deal with in mop, but aside from that if that team continues to have the ability to oneshot like it did in the past expansions and massive cc thrown out of the equation then we might get really competitive even in ranked pvp. No doubt the current ability pruning and cc nerfs turn the tide to our advantage, looks much better than mop, cata and the first half of wotlk.

#edit: changed titel

[HPAVC]

I am interested in how the sp coefficients impact the former instant case heal spells, this could be pretty big for their effects in the end.

[Kruschpakx4]

of course they might get stronger but its easier to lockout both healers while oneshoting with windshear built into the nuke macro like I'm doing it now, since its a 3 sec lockout it should give overload/multistrike enough time to hit when the target is more than 20 yards away

[ebony]

Am going to try Pally next xpac, though i might fall over to sham's if i need two you forgot changeing gear is going to be a lot easyer one pvp set fits all. though i can see a lot of players leving ratted pvp and going into the more fun pvp arana's but we shell see.

[Kruschpakx4]

Yes quad ret+x should be really strong imo, the new setbonus cuts cc duration in half when wings are up and hand of freedom+liberator+protector of the innocent or battle healer glyph is really strong for multiboxing, fear won't be much of a pain with that stuff, perhaps that team can be played again similar to kromtor's style going for high pressure instead of trying to oneshot. Perhaps use quad ret +enh shaman for snare, tremor and storm elemental with primal elementalist for 100% movement speed increase on team.

Though there is probably a oneshot button potential, final verdict actually does more damage than stormblast, pure holy damage with mastery increasing its damage and attunement: mastery, wings up, thats gonna hit hard, 10yard range is ok.

[ebony]

Yes quad ret+x should be really strong imo, the new setbonus cuts cc duration in half when wings are up and hand of freedom+liberator+protector of the innocent or battle healer glyph is really strong for multiboxing, fear won't be much of a pain with that stuff, perhaps that team can be played again similar to kromtor's style going for high pressure instead of trying to oneshot. Perhaps use quad ret +enh shaman for snare, tremor and storm elemental with primal elementalist for 100% movement speed increase on team.

Though there is probably a oneshot button potential, final verdict actually does more damage than stormblast, pure holy damage with mastery increasing its damage and attunement: mastery, wings up, thats gonna hit hard, 10yard range is ok.


ya i got my pallys to 90 and having a lot of fun on them am trying to stay to one class for now. cn not wait to play with the changes in 6.0

[Kruschpakx4]

depends on their healing capabilities then, wotlk had that sick stuff with bubble+group sacrifice that made it viable for 5 dps, for 5 boxing I think dk or enhance would be great for the 5th spot in a 4 ret team

there were some more changes yesterday, finally warrior needs def stance again to spellreflect, that makes it easier to kill them as they wont be able to switch out of gladiator stance while in combat

[Kruschpakx4]

so I've pretty much read everything now and I'm going to prepare a ret team too, the healing and cc avoidance potential just looks too awesome with holy prism, empowered seals, selfless healer, divine purpose, clemency combined with freedom and protector glyph.

I'd say 4 rets and then pick the fotm class for the 5th spot and go for 5v5

[Fat Tire]

so I've pretty much read everything now and I'm going to prepare a ret team too, the healing and cc avoidance potential just looks too awesome with holy prism, empowered seals, selfless healer, divine purpose, clemency combined with freedom and protector glyph.

I'd say 4 rets and then pick the fotm class for the 5th spot and go for 5v5

Is there any way we could get you to do a write up on pallys the same way you did with shamans? I havent played in several months and I am out of the "loop" and would probably come back if dk/ret/ret were to come back. I know your talking about 5s, but I would downsize the info for 3s.

Thanks

[Kruschpakx4]

I'll sum it up, but I can't say much about the teams performance in mop since I didn't play it

[Kruschpakx4]

Paladin - Retribution



First of all I see three different ways to play this team, either strong burst damage (Type I), strong healing (Type II) or a mix of both (Type III)

I tried to gather some information from kromtors thread (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/27563-DK-4-Ret-Tips-n-Tricks?highlight=kromtor) (wotlk) too but the game has changed too much :/ since ret can't dispel fear anymore I'm not sure if dk will be a better addition to that team than a shaman.

I'd use long arm of the law, fist of justice, clemency and selfless healer for all three types, using cleanse on cooldown vs certain classes is also important


Type I: uses holy avenger, execution sentence, final verdict and depending on overall surviveability/burst damage in the game (and I suppose burst will be pretty high at the beginning just as in every xpac) I'd play this with a resto shaman for double tremor/windwalk support, primal elementalist+storm elemental for 100% increased run speed and shocks. If the enemys team has no warlock then he should go for totemic projection and support with capacitor/root totem instead of going for double tremor.

Pros:


High burst damage (Final verdict does 280% weapon damage as holy (increased by mastery), I remember holinka saying 180% wd in wod equals 380% wd in mop, so you can guess how hard that one hits), even if it doesnt oneshot it looks like a massive burst ability without cooldown, which makes it very strong combined with holy avenger up, crusader strike -> final verdict -> judgement -> final verdict -> exorcism -> final verdict, combine it with execution sentence

Cons:

Obviously less healing, though it shouldn't be that big of a problem if you play that style with a healer, however this only works well if the ret heal is in a good spot since shamans usually have a hard time keeping 4 dps alive, but you'll need the tremor in 5s environment


Type II: uses divine purpose, holy prism, empowered seals

Pros:

With seal of insight you're never going to die again, with bigger health pools 3% hp every 2 sec is very strong plus you can switch seals without losing the effect
Works well for a 5 dps team with enh shaman since you'll need the tremor I'd say enh>dk in 5s, also pe+storm ele for 100% run speed, double tremor/windwalk or perhaps frost shock root instead of windwalk
Can also be played with dk but then you have to drain locks 24/7 and kill them before you run out of fear breakers


Cons:

Probably no oneshot since Templers verdict doesn't ignore armor
longer games due to the lack of burst make fear more of a problem since we can't avoid it forever


Type III: (my personal favorite) uses divine purpose(situational holy avenger), holy prism and final verdict

Pros:

Works well for 4 and 5 dps combos
High burst damage and oneshots possible
Burst healing with holy prism


Cons:

build up time for burst


I'd play that with dk enh shaman, rogue or healer

with dk: drain lock 24/7, once he drops low finish him with wings+final verdict/HoW, otherwise switch targets whenever deathgrip is availible for force cooldowns and once someone is getting low pop wings
with enh: same as above but tremor keeps you longer in the game vs certain teams with lock/priest
with rogue: use holy avenger and go in with aoe stealth, snipe someone (most likely something that can't block) with all cooldowns in smokebomb right at the beginning, then zerg anything that could spam cc
with healer: well ... no need to further explain this

[ebony]

i think a Deathkight would would better as then they all keep up on mounts and saves driving from the shammy that be 20% less run speed

[Kruschpakx4]

ok you got me there, that is annoying but I'd play the enh shamans as the main anyway

however the mount speed is probably the last thing I worry about ^^ I faced such a problem once too, and I see it only as a problem with flying mounts and blizzard took care of that in wod :p

[ebony]

ok you got me there, that is annoying but I'd play the enh shamans as the main anyway

however the mount speed is probably the last thing I worry about ^^ I faced such a problem once too, and I see it only as a problem with flying mounts and blizzard took care of that in wod :p

ya but shammys are to much fun and caster are always going to be better in big scale pvp i find melee gets killed to much its a lot harder so the wpvp island i think it be better to be caster standing at the back. killing your targets

[Kruschpakx4]

sure for large scale pvp you'd rather want a dk to grip targets into the ret team instead of charging into 20 people, most likely going to play dk 4 ret in wpvp and enh 4 ret for arena, but first of all I'll try out 4 ele/4 enh with heal ofc :)

[Fat Tire]

Thanks.

I am wondering how the removal of BF and doubling of health will affect the ret pally heals.

[Kruschpakx4]

well tbh I don't know, doubling health and removing base resilience doesn't really change much, bigger numbers bigger health pools or smaller number smaller health pools ... you get the point

removing BF is actually good for hybrids so I think overall those changes are good for us

anyway I took a closer look at dks today, after all I think four dk (frost or unholy) + heal probably works better than I thought, I've never fully read what necrotic plague does, but actually that brings up a new playstyle for us, we can use death grips/gorefiends grasp to pull them together and spread 4x necrotic plague on the entire team and then every 10-20 seconds another gorefiends grasp to extend the plague, since it does stack up it gets very important to keep the debuff up for maximum damage, sure it won't stack up infinitely but I suppose when you keep that stuff up on 5 targets for long enough then they're in huge trouble.
The disease dispel immunity glyph should work with necro plague too and wether you play frost or unholy you can use ERW+double obliterate or quad gargoyle to nuke an injured target to death. It would also allow us to use pillar of frost glyph since we don't need much movement anyway as long as dots keep rolling and using chilblains +arena chains of ice macro to support the healer.

[Fat Tire]

With the removal of necrotic strike I am not liking dks anymore. Their mobility has always sucked anyways.

I actually like melee hybrids alot more now

[Kruschpakx4]

Tbh losing NS isn't a big deal, when you stack dk's in wod you'd rather want to spread necrotic plague and spam deathstrike and keep yourself alive until everything dies from the plague, I'm gonna try out the quad dk heal for sure but I don't know if its going to be quad frost or unholy, frost is nice because you can spread necroplague with a howling blast rotation [arena1-5] and use deathgrip/aoe grip defensively. On the other hand Unholy can pop quad gargoyle for extra pressure. I also like the new deathcoil glyph so the healing will be pretty good as it heals for 127% of ap.

And btw, I saw level 90 shamans on beta with 15 charges of ls, so it will be 20 charges on ls with the perk, thats going to be pretty massive burst.

Right now overall performance in 5v5 will be Ele>dk>enh>ret, (obviously because ret is harder to play with all the macros you need to make it work well and counter cc abilities aren't that strong)

/off topic: finally more upload available in my region, I'll be able to stream soon (yes arenas too)

[ebony]

Tbh losing NS isn't a big deal, when you stack dk's in wod you'd rather want to spread necrotic plague and spam deathstrike and keep yourself alive until everything dies from the plague, I'm gonna try out the quad dk heal for sure but I don't know if its going to be quad frost or unholy, frost is nice because you can spread necroplague with a howling blast rotation [arena1-5] and use deathgrip/aoe grip defensively. On the other hand Unholy can pop quad gargoyle for extra pressure. I also like the new deathcoil glyph so the healing will be pretty good as it heals for 127% of ap.

And btw, I saw level 90 shamans on beta with 15 charges of ls, so it will be 20 charges on ls with the perk, thats going to be pretty massive burst.

Right now overall performance in 5v5 will be Ele>dk>enh>ret, (obviously because ret is harder to play with all the macros you need to make it work well and counter cc abilities aren't that strong)

/off topic: finally more upload available in my region, I'll be able to stream soon (yes arenas too)

nice i can not wait for you to stream.

My 1st group will be the shammys to gear and level. as the gear changes am not really that upset changeing from ele to ehn to much it just goes down to what am going to be a lot of the time. i think am going to change my shammys to dwafts as well from pandas.

[Shodokan]

With the removal of necrotic strike I am not liking dks anymore. Their mobility has always sucked anyways.

I actually like melee hybrids alot more now

Since mid cata all stacks of the NS anti-healing was healed through simultaneously if there was the debuff from multiple death knights on the target effectively making it a wasted ability on all but one.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To everything else in the thread:
Necrotic plague will make it so that dks play much like a "dot cleave" from early s9-s10 that did amazingly well at the high end of the spectrum (one of the only thing 2300+ mmr that could beat my quad dks reliably...fuck fire mages). The nerf to the damage a bit on dks will hurt their pressure and their immobility outside of the first 21ish seconds of the fight(excluding death grip). Gorefiends would be great for spreading necrotic plague but desecrated ground is a must vs heavy CC comps and hungering cold inside of gorefiends is amazing as well. The soul reaper problem will still be prevalent though. The healing from the glyph will be nice but 4 dks likely will have a healer (which will allow you to live through burst during healer cc which was a major problem... 117% of AP should be something like 1/3 of your health from all 4 heals minimum).

Ret suck currently for quite a few reasons: CC rapes them (which the change to avenging wrath will help but not alleviate completely), their damage output is subpar compared to other classes. I do not think that the damage will be enough without final verdict, but with it you may be able to kill someone during a stun due to the damage being only mitigated by defensive cooldowns. Outside of freedom and their judgement effect they are also relatively immobile, bubble will always be great though. They don't really cleave damage (like they use to) at all to make it so swapping is quite as easy. Unlike shaman though they will have 18 seconds of "lol damage" that essentially gives you a lava lash/obliterate every other ability. Them making the choice between holy power usage only being offensive/defensive instead of making you keep up inquisition will make them deal more sustained damage and provide more heals obviously. As cool as it is to have 1.5% health regen per second isn't going to be enough to allow you to really rely on your holy prism/selfless healer in order to keep you alive long enough to kill someone without final verdict's increased damage and it being holy damage. The shaman should be better than a DK though I agree with kruschpak simply because windwalk totem and tremmor are so valuable as well as the burst damage they provide in ascendance being one of the highest burst sequences in the game as well with another form of crowd control but on the other hand the silence and grip in to your blender is quite nice. The other big thing is taking CC away from your toons with hand of sac (not on self). I'm not sure we'll ever be back to the god mode damage/healing of WotLK. Exorcism also being 117% of attack power means that for as much healing as the dks glyph will have... they will do for damage in that one ability.


I really wish monks had better healing for boxers because a 10 second CD of spamming blackout kick is a lot of damage. Monk/Spriest/Shaman is going to be a top contender I'm betting in 3's.

The biggest thing for me though is that well... no more druid bullshit symbiosis with mages/hunters etc making them poor choices as a first target and more abilities sharing DRs. Also... no more baseresil/battle fatigue.

Ele shaman look really strong though. Enhance looks like it will still be decently strong too.

Personally not sure what I'd want to do as far as a team or if i will even box for pvp (didn't this entire past expansion, had other things to do IRL and my main healer friend quitting).

[Kruschpakx4]

Sorry I got that wrong, the deathcoil glyph doesn't heal, it places an absorb on the target for 127,2% of ap, but the heal from deathcoil itself on undead targets is 270% of ap, thats still strong with lichborne



Necrotic plague will make it so that dks play much like a "dot cleave"

And I think it will be strong, four dks with the enduring infection glyph, even double healer should've trouble keeping 5 people alive when you play quad unholy, I'm not sure if you get shadow infusion proccs by using deathcoil on allies but if thats the case than it will be really fun to play. I don't think desecrated ground will be necessary though, at least not against every lineup, I'd rather use at least 2 gorefiends grasp since you don't have double deathgrip anymore, its a nice tool to support your healer which will be necessary against melee teams

btw the new set bonus are
Item - Death Knight WoD PvP 2P Bonus (New) Using Death Grip on a target grants you the Morbid Strike effect. Morbid Strike increases the damage of your next special attack by 1,000%.
Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Frost 4P Bonus (New) When you have Freezing Fog active, your next Howling Blast will apply Biting Cold to all targets it hits. Biting Cold increases Frost damage taken by 1,000% for8 sec.
Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Unholy 4P Bonus (New) When you activate Dark Transformation, you gain the Death Dealer effect. Death Dealer increases Shadow damage dealt by 20% for 15 sec.

dark transformation+gargoyle+dps trinket and fully stacked necro plague gonna be fun

[zenga]

well tbh I don't know, doubling health and removing base resilience doesn't really change much, bigger numbers bigger health pools or smaller number smaller health pools ... you get the point

It does for choices like nature's guardian vs stone bulwark totem (shields/absorbs in general). Or making the totemic vigor glyph more powerful. Though it was my understanding that the damage of an ability relative vs the total healthpool would be lower in WoD than it is now.

[Kruschpakx4]

It does for choices like nature's guardian vs stone bulwark totem (shields/absorbs in general). Or making the totemic vigor glyph more powerful.

correct and still doesn't change much, I don't see a reason to use the totem over NG in 5s neither do I want sacrifice a glyph spot as ele/enh for viger (mop and wod). That rather affects non boxers


Though it was my understanding that the damage of an ability relative vs the total healthpool would be lower in WoD than it is now.

according to the blog doubled health so damage should be lower compared to health than it is now, and thats quite ok, ofc makes oneshots harder but tbh right now sometimes I even die in the opener against 3 dps teams especially against rogue/x/x, so beeing able to survive an opener from the usual 3dps without having to use everything right away is good

[Fat Tire]

Also... no more baseresil/battle fatigue.



Base resilience is still there its just called versatility now and the crit reduction is baked in 150 instead of 200.

[Kruschpakx4]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biUgCYBytY

melee teams are fucked against shamans

swg+hex to force trinket then capatitor+root totem and then liquid magma 4x20 globes (doing splash damage) in 10 sec, imo pretty strong for a 45 sec cooldown, thats going to make oneshots much easier

[Shodokan]

Thats a lot of damage... its essentially a crit chain lightning every .5 seconds

[Kruschpakx4]

I just hope the cooldowns gets nerfed and not the damage :D

seriously 45 seconds is sick, if you just keep infight with a single person then he gets all 80 globes, in arena you could simply exploit its maxrange, if you keep your totems 30y behind you and melees attack you then their healers most likely wont be in range and all the damage gets split between 3 people

[Kruschpakx4]

new shaman mastery



Mastery: Elemental Overload (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/77222#18471-18505) When you deal damage with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earth Shock, you have 16% chance to gain Electric Charge. At 3 Electric Charges, a Lightning Strike hits the target for [ AP ] Nature damage. When you deal damage with Lava Burst, Lava Beam, and Flame Shock, you have an 16% chance to gain Rising Heat. At 3 Rising Heats, an Eruption hits the target for [ AP ] Fire damage. Shaman - Elemental Spec.


I guess its not that bad after all, even though it slows down the lightning shield charge generation, but possible extra damage on earthshock is good

[ebony]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biugcybyty

melee teams are fucked against shamans

swg+hex to force trinket then capatitor+root totem and then liquid magma 4x20 globes (doing splash damage) in 10 sec, imo pretty strong for a 45 sec cooldown, thats going to make oneshots much easier

wow this looks fun!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdKA2ud9Y-g

find this of enhancement shaman from arana beta @ level 90. This guy does my head in though :@

[Kruschpakx4]

that stormblast doing 2k damage, as much as auto hits on 80k health pools ...^^

I just hope blizz gets it right to put everyone on that level

[Kruschpakx4]

good news for ele, disrupting shout finally gone!




We’re replace the level 45 talent row (Staggering Shout / Piercing Howl / Disrupting Shout) with:
Varies by spec:
Arms – Taste for Blood: Passive. Rend ticks grant 3 Rage.
Fury – Furious Strikes: Passive. Reduces the cost of Wild Strike by 10 Rage.
Protection – Heavy Repercussions: Passive. Shield Slam deals 50% additional damage while Shield Block or Shield Charge is active.
Sudden Death: Passive. Auto attacks have a chance to trigger Sudden Death, making your next Execute free and usable on targets above 20% health.
Varies by spec:
Arms – Slam: Active ability. Costs 10 Rage. Deals 100% weapon damage. Each consecutive use increases Slam’s damage by 50% and Rage cost by 100%, stacking up to 2 times.
Fury – Unquenchable Thirst: Passive. Bloodthirst has no cooldown.
Protection – Unyielding Strikes: Passive. Devastate reduces the Rage cost of Heroic Strike by 6, stacking up to 5 times. Lasts 10 sec. No longer refreshes while at 5 stacks.

[Fat Tire]

good news for ele, disrupting shout finally gone!

Yea, but all warriors have MSR on a 30 sec cd in wod

[Fat Tire]

Is it just me or is any one else excited by tank specs in pvp?


Historically, tank specializations have been somewhat problematic for PvP balance. Taking a character designed to soak massive hits from raid bosses and putting them in front of other players poses some very difficult challenges. If they’re able to put out enough damage to be a threat, they become unstoppable. If not, enemy players can just ignore them. We’ve seen some limited success with tank specs as flag carriers in Rated Battlegrounds, but even that has proven problematic.

However, the class and systems changes coming in Warlords of Draenor are giving us an opportunity to try a different approach. With Vengeance gone, tanks are able to deal much more damage than previously. It’ll still be a little behind a true DPS spec, but thanks to the increased player health pools and healer changes, PvP is much less reliant on heavy burst damage. Sustained damage output can still be quite threatening.

We feel that that increase in damage will make tanks quite dangerous in PvP, but as they still need to survive those massive swings in PvE, their ability to soak damage would be too much. To that end, in an upcoming beta build, we’ll be trying out a debuff that increases tank damage taken by 25% from other players. It’s important to understand that this is not an attempt to make tank specs inviable in PvP. Quite the opposite – it’s just one part of an overall strategy that, if successful, will make tank specs a reasonable choice, even in situations where there isn’t a flag to carry or node to defend.

Our hope is that we can get tank specs to a point where they take a little less damage than other specs (but not so much less that it’s problematic), and, as a tradeoff, deal a little less damage than other specs (but not so much less that they’re not a threat). It’s definitely an experiment, and one that’s going to take a lot of iteration and testing. We may even decide to take a diff
erent approach entirely. But we think it’ll be pretty cool if it works, so we’re going to give it a try. Let us know what you think!

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13271747932?page=1

[Kruschpakx4]

Yea, but all warriors have MSR on a 30 sec cd in wod

it will replace sr though, and the warrior has to be in def stance so they will most likely not go for gladiator stance

not sure how to think about tanks in pvp, I suppose they won't be that funny when fighting healers

[Fat Tire]

not sure how to think about tanks in pvp, I suppose they won't be that funny when fighting healers


Prot pally double healer S7/S8 are some of my best memories of wow.

[Kruschpakx4]

will see if avengers shield has its comeback^^

I think 5 blood dk should also be sick with spamming deathcoil shields on each other and bloodworm heal +necro plague for dps, I just hope that shield stacks from multiple dks

[Kruschpakx4]

earthquake made it back :), still cast time/mana cost sucks for pvp, its partly useful in 5s to screw up rogue-melee openers on you



Earthquake (New) (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/61882#18505-18522) You cause the earth at the target location to tremble and break, dealing [ 112.5% of Nature Spell Power ] Physical damage over 10 sec to enemies in an 8 yard radius, with a 10% chance of knocking down affected targets. Shaman - Elemental Spec. 70.3% of Base Mana. 35 yd range. 2.5 sec cast. 10 sec cooldown.



also, we got numbers on mastery



Mastery: Elemental Discharge (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/77222#18505-18522) When you deal direct damage with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earth Shock, you have a 16% chance to gain Electric Charge. At 3 Electric Charges, a Lightning Strike hits the target for [ 200% of Spell Power ] Nature damage. When you deal direct damage with Lava Burst, Lava Beam, and Flame Shock, you have an a 16% chance to gain Rising Heat. At 3 Rising Heats, an Eruption hits the target for [ 300% of Spell Power ;] Fire damage. Shaman - Elemental Spec.


too bad we can't make proper use of this, but potential extra damage on earth shock is always good

[ebony]

earthquake made it back :), still cast time/mana cost sucks for pvp, its partly useful in 5s to screw up rogue-melee openers on you



Earthquake (New) (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/61882#18505-18522) You cause the earth at the target location to tremble and break, dealing [ 112.5% of Nature Spell Power ] Physical damage over 10 sec to enemies in an 8 yard radius, with a 10% chance of knocking down affected targets. Shaman - Elemental Spec. 70.3% of Base Mana. 35 yd range. 2.5 sec cast. 10 sec cooldown.



also, we got numbers on mastery



Mastery: Elemental Discharge (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/77222#18505-18522) When you deal direct damage with Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning, and Earth Shock, you have a 16% chance to gain Electric Charge. At 3 Electric Charges, a Lightning Strike hits the target for [ 200% of Spell Power ] Nature damage. When you deal direct damage with Lava Burst, Lava Beam, and Flame Shock, you have an a 16% chance to gain Rising Heat. At 3 Rising Heats, an Eruption hits the target for [ 300% of Spell Power ;] Fire damage. Shaman - Elemental Spec.


too bad we can't make proper use of this, but potential extra damage on earth shock is always good

been playing a ehn shammy in beta. they feel kinda weak to other classess hunters still have a crazy opener in 2's and more of less clean you out in a few hits. Loseing chain heal kinda sucks as healing rain is nowhere as stong there just my cents atm. the new "strom blast" is really kinda crap the numbers i get from there are not good at all a lot of my other spells hit a lot harder ele feels a little better atm.

[Kruschpakx4]

from what I've seen both are in a rather bad shape right now, however there is still a long road ahead till release so I'm not worried right now

otherwise I'm just gonna reroll fotm :)

[ebony]

fotm :)

?????

[MiRai]

fotm :)

?????
Flavor of the month (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flavor+of+the+month)

[ebony]

Flavor of the month (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flavor+of+the+month)

ill just go hide in a hole somewhere!

[Kruschpakx4]

omg I just read mmo champ, pretty much every cc gets converted to an incapacitate (http://www.wowwiki.com/Incapacitate), so it breaks on damage, thats the most awesome change since fok aoe silience got removed, its even more awesome by a long shot, fear now disorients so your toons wont run amok any longer, thats the best thing happend to multiboxers in wow's history, it makes every lineup viable

and another new mastery for elemental, now that sounds much more awesome



Molten Earth is a new Mastery for Elemental Shaman.

Molten Earth causes the Shaman’s damaging spells to incite the earth around to come to their aid for 6 seconds, repeatedly dealing Fire damage to their most recently attacked target.




yet I'm still uncertain if 5s will still reward titles in wod but if so then we have a very good chance on beeing gladiator level again, its like 0,001% of all teams will get it together to not aoe you out of cc

everything depends on damage numbers now, cc problem solved

[Selz]

With the CC problems sovled, im not worried about dmg.

I much rather get rid of "too much stupid CC" and then have low dmg.

[Kruschpakx4]

still waiting for official blizz notes, but they mentioned fear being problematic because it changes your position so this is a reasonable change, however so much cc on the same dr the game is going to be very funny for us again, I just hope they change tremor in a way to remove disorient or even incapacitate, but this would be too op I guess, at least as long as it has a 1 min cooldown, I'd actually trade for a 5 min tremor that removes incapacitate then :D

I do also embrace the return of elemental overload by giving us extra 20% multistrike chance, that makes it alot easier to stack up lightning shield

[Fat Tire]

yet I'm still uncertain if 5s will still reward titles in wod

I have seen nothing that says titles from 5s are removed in Wod.

[Frenchy]

So from what I'm reading, it looks as though Elemental will be one of the strongest classes and specs to multibox in 5v5 arenas at WoD. It makes me really happy to hear that, cause I loved playing my Elemental Shamans. Unfortunately, I had to respecc them to Enhancement lately cause Elemental just wasn't viable in 5s in MoP, and I simply haven't had much fun with Enhancement (perhaps it's because I'm not that comfortable with melee multiboxing and with Enhancement Shamans in general). Either way, this is very promising for me.

Now, Kruschpak, do you or does anybody else here have idea what hunters are looking like in WoD? I've heard so many different things from people, and since I don't have access to the beta, I'm not really sure what to think. How good do you think hunters will be at WoD? Do they still have Camouflage and Glyph of Camouflage? Is Aimed Shotx5 --> Chimera Shotx5 still looking like a viable 1-shot opener?

Thanks.

[Shodokan]

So from what I'm reading, it looks as though Elemental will be one of the strongest classes and specs to multibox in 5v5 arenas at WoD. It makes me really happy to hear that, cause I loved playing my Elemental Shamans. Unfortunately, I had to respecc them to Enhancement lately cause Elemental just wasn't viable in 5s in MoP, and I simply haven't had much fun with Enhancement (perhaps it's because I'm not that comfortable with melee multiboxing and with Enhancement Shamans in general). Either way, this is very promising for me.

Now, Kruschpak, do you or does anybody else here have idea what hunters are looking like in WoD? I've heard so many different things from people, and since I don't have access to the beta, I'm not really sure what to think. How good do you think hunters will be at WoD? Do they still have Camouflage and Glyph of Camouflage? Is Aimed Shotx5 --> Chimera Shotx5 still looking like a viable 1-shot opener?

Thanks.

With the health pool and damage changes (from watching bay's videos as well as bajeera's) it doesn't seem like you can 1 shot someone with any class composition. Aimed shot was hitting for about 16k and critting for 25k on a 370k ish health pool. Chaimera was hitting for 15kish it looked like. So... not happening.

[Fat Tire]

I would really wait for atleast the first couple damage tuning passes before looking at fotm's classes

[Kruschpakx4]

I have seen nothing that says titles from 5s are removed in Wod.

I suspected it because trial of gladiator was targeted only for 3s so 5s would've been without title rewards then, since it got scratched it should be as it is now ...I hope so



Now, Kruschpak, do you or does anybody else here have idea what hunters are looking like in WoD? I've heard so many different things from people, and since I don't have access to the beta, I'm not really sure what to think. How good do you think hunters will be at WoD? Do they still have Camouflage and Glyph of Camouflage? Is Aimed Shotx5 --> Chimera Shotx5 still looking like a viable 1-shot opener?

Thanks.

not up to date with hunters, however lone wolf seems to be good for this purpose and power shot should be > aimed shot then with careful aim nerfed to 60%


With the health pool and damage changes (from watching bay's videos as well as bajeera's) it doesn't seem like you can 1 shot someone with any class composition. Aimed shot was hitting for about 16k and critting for 25k on a 370k ish health pool. Chaimera was hitting for 15kish it looked like. So... not happening.

in case of oneshots not be possible we have to stick on the unholy dotcleave train I guess, it should be really good with necrotic plague on 5 people you'll get lots of runic power for deathcoil heals and basically tank them until they run oom


I would really wait for atleast the first couple damage tuning passes before looking at fotm's classes

this pretty much

[Shodokan]

I suspected it because trial of gladiator was targeted only for 3s so 5s would've been without title rewards then, since it got scratched it should be as it is now ...I hope so



not up to date with hunters, however lone wolf seems to be good for this purpose and power shot should be > aimed shot then with careful aim nerfed to 60%



in case of oneshots not be possible we have to stick on the unholy dotcleave train I guess, it should be really good with necrotic plague on 5 people you'll get lots of runic power for deathcoil heals and basically tank them until they run oom



this pretty much

Frost dks never had one shot ability, it was always a pressure thing. Nor did rets in wotlk.

But yeah, we need a high pressure high sustain team if there are no one shots.

[zenga]

I did a short ele shaman session (video) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkVwwqeLXBM) vs the dummy after the last beta build. Granted there is a bug atm so lava burst does not consume lava surge, but still the damage relative to healthpools seems way off to me, I expected totally different numbers.

[Kruschpakx4]

Frost dks never had one shot ability, it was always a pressure thing. Nor did rets in wotlk.

But yeah, we need a high pressure high sustain team if there are no one shots.

any sort of caster team needs a oneshot unless you can kill everything with dots since eles for example aren't that good in pillar kiting games

and yeah rets had magic dispel, those days are over :/


I did a short ele shaman session (video) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkVwwqeLXBM) vs the dummy after the last beta build. Granted there is a bug atm so lava burst does not consume lava surge, but still the damage relative to healthpools seems way off to me, I expected totally different numbers.

its really confusing somehow when you compare damage on dummies and damage on players, is versatility 90% damage reduction or what?

[ebony]

any sort of caster team needs a oneshot unless you can kill everything with dots since eles for example aren't that good in pillar kiting games

and yeah rets had magic dispel, those days are over :/



its really confusing somehow when you compare damage on dummies and damage on players, is versatility 90% damage reduction or what?


as soon as they fix arena ill try to get some 3's or 2's games boxing ehn shammys,

[zenga]

its really confusing somehow when you compare damage on dummies and damage on players, is versatility 90% damage reduction or what?
Well on the shattrath dummies the damage seems to be much lower than on the one I was spanking in orgrimmar. First time I noticed that the enemy level plays a role in the amount of damage that you deal.

[Kruschpakx4]

yeah right there was something about increased damage on lower level enemies

[Kruschpakx4]

Item - Shaman WoD PvP Enhancement 2P Bonus (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/166103#18537-18566) When you activate Feral Spirit, you gain the Spirits, the duration of incoming crowd control effects is reduced by 50% for 30 sec.
Item - Shaman WoD PvP Enhancement 4P Bonus (New) (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/171121#18537-18566) Windfury now deals damage 2 extra times.


I guess this brings enh on the same level as ele, however they still have to increase stormblast damage 3k crits is not enough



Rune Tap (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/48982#18537-18566) now has a 2.5 sec cooldown, up from 0.5 sec. Now reduces all damage taken by 50% for 3 sec rather than granting an absorb shield equal to 30% of your missing health.
Item - Death Knight WoD PvP Blood 4P Bonus (New) (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/171456#18537-18566) Anti-Magic Shell also applies to the 2 nearest allies.


thats also something that makes blood probably better for boxing than forst/unholy, depends if necro plague actually deals enough damage to force healers to waste mana on stronger heals


Blood Changes
Active Mitigation was a very successful design that was inspired by Death Knights' tanking style. However, it went beyond that, and Death Knights themselves were somewhat left behind in that regard. We made several changes to bring up the interactivity of Blood combat. This includes making Death Strike (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/49998) cause healing based on attack power, but be affected by the new Resolve passive (see Tank Vengeance (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/84839) and Resolve above), which gives it the traditional increase from recent damage. Plus, Rune Tap (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/48982) is being significantly improved, to become a strong Active Mitigation button.



Rune Tap (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/48982) has been redesigned. It now reduces all damage taken by 50% for 3 seconds. It also now has 2 charges, with a 40-second recharge time.

Will of the Necropolis (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/81164) has been redesigned. It now automatically triggers an immediate, free Rune Tap (http://beta.wowdb.com/spells/48982) when you take damage that reduces you below 30% health. This effect cannot occur more often than once every 45 seconds.

[Fat Tire]

I am going to enjoy all the tank specs

[Kruschpakx4]

Have beta access now if you want me something to look up let me know

[MiRai]

Diminishing Returns in WoD:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/13509280909

[Kruschpakx4]

So I've played ele and enh on beta and despite what I've/you've seen they're not as bad. First of all blizzard hasn't done any number tuning yet so no point about talking about that, but the mechanics so far look great first of all lightning bolt/chainlight/lvb have a 100% chance to grant an ls charge (3 hits by chainlight cause 3 charges) as well as multistrikes have a 100% chance to generate an ls charge, its going to be easy to stack it up to 20. Fulmination can multistrike with all its 20 charges, and the multistrike of it has no travel time, thats really great for oneshots. Mana reg is also i a good spot, going oom will most likely not happen as long as you don't spam hs nonstop. The new mastery keeps attacking while you're cc'd. Unleash flame has 20 seconds uptime (up for 8 sec) which is good for preparing oneshots with instant eb, so after all that stuff looks good but we need a slight damage buff, yet fulmination hits for 27k with bloodfury/on use trinket, earthshock ~4k and unleashed instant eb ~13k, so close to 45k per toon makes up 180k total damage on pvp targets so we rely on crit/multistrike to land a oneshot with that combo, however with support of the level 100 talents it is possible though.

Enhancement dps is ok, pvp setbonus are very good but ascendance sucks hard so I hope that one gets a huge buff, though their utility and healing is still strong

[ebony]

So I've played ele and enh on beta and despite what I've/you've seen they're not as bad. First of all blizzard hasn't done any number tuning yet so no point about talking about that, but the mechanics so far look great first of all lightning bolt/chainlight/lvb have a 100% chance to grant an ls charge (3 hits by chainlight cause 3 charges) as well as multistrikes have a 100% chance to generate an ls charge, its going to be easy to stack it up to 20. Fulmination can multistrike with all its 20 charges, and the multistrike of it has no travel time, thats really great for oneshots. Mana reg is also i a good spot, going oom will most likely not happen as long as you don't spam hs nonstop. The new mastery keeps attacking while you're cc'd. Unleash flame has 20 seconds uptime (up for 8 sec) which is good for preparing oneshots with instant eb, so after all that stuff looks good but we need a slight damage buff, yet fulmination hits for 27k with bloodfury/on use trinket, earthshock ~4k and unleashed instant eb ~13k, so close to 45k per toon makes up 180k total damage on pvp targets so we rely on crit/multistrike to land a oneshot with that combo, however with support of the level 100 talents it is possible though.

Enhancement dps is ok, pvp setbonus are very good but ascendance sucks hard so I hope that one gets a huge buff, though their utility and healing is still strong


ya am five boxing ele shammys now on beta and there a lot better then they was a few weeks ago. having lots of fun in the old world pvp zone brings back the good old av days!

[Kruschpakx4]

necro plague nerfed by 40% down to 3% of ap, if shaman gets buffed on top of that I'd say shamans are the way to go again

another hint that blizz doesnt like 5s

and the number of people doing 5's is the same as those doing CM's?
Yeah very few people do 5s and we don't think it is very good gameplay either

that stuff always scares me :/

[ebony]

necro plague nerfed by 40% down to 3% of ap, if shaman gets buffed on top of that I'd say shamans are the way to go again

another hint that blizz doesnt like 5s

and the number of people doing 5's is the same as those doing CM's?
Yeah very few people do 5s and we don't think it is very good gameplay either

that stuff always scares me :/


i would think they would remove 5's by now if it was to go, CM/RBG/5's Are not used in the game much. I read it more of a thing they don't care about it as in buff classes round it.

as for deathkights i love mine on the 100 pvp server. the 100 talent stacks nice :)

[zenga]

Tremor no longer cast-able when feared ... that kinda fucks up shaman teams since we'll have to cast it beforehand now.

[Kruschpakx4]

havent read it in blue yet, maybe bug?

nvm tweet

[ebony]

Tremor no longer cast-able when feared ... that kinda fucks up shaman teams since we'll have to cast it beforehand now.

ya i had a feeling this was a bug then read it was planed change shammy's have the worse movement in the game, at the start i can not see them being very good like the start of cata. maybe later in the xpac they get buffed like cata.


am going for pallys or deathkights at the start and going from there.

[Kruschpakx4]

still waiting for the number tuning, even with the tremor nerf we can still trinket+tremor rotate if we got catched by an mass fear and there aren't that many in the game (intimidating shout 90 sec cd, psychic scream 45 sec, how of terror 40 sec), both priest and warlock have their mass fear as a talent, and for warlock that means either deathcoil, mass fear or shadowfury, the most problematic class right now is warrior against ele shamans. However priest fears are predictable as they usually don't stand near your team, as well as warlock. Ele shamans will also use call of the elements to have double tremor and enhance has 50% reduced cc with wolves up anyway.

Also lets not forget long fears last 6 seconds only now plus fear dr's with cyclone and blind, thats pretty huge imo for 5s, you can basically exploit that change at the beginning of a game to make your healer have dr on blind/cycl because he'll just stand in your team and eat the mass fear

Comes down to damage I'd say, the ability to stand there and spam heals and barely lose mana was the reason for my 2400 in season 8, just tank and wait for an opportunity to oneshot (ok now we have to stack up lightning shield too)