wow Patch 7.2.5 Build 24287 - Class Changes

[Stan 5,020]

A minor patch hit 7.2.5 PTR servers today with a few class changes (Elemental Shaman buffs) and Tier 20 Set Bonus adjustments.

Tier 20 Set Bonus Changes

Rogue

• Item - Rogue T20 Assassination 4P Bonus (down from 60%)
• Item - Rogue T20 Outlaw 2P Bonus (down from 10%)
• Item - Rogue T20 Outlaw 4P Bonus (down from 15 seconds)

Class Changes

Death Knight

• Necrotic Strike (absorbtion up from 600% AP) 

Demon Hunter

• Demon Blades (down from 100%)

Druid

• Ironfur (level requirement lowered from 44)

Mage

• Displacement // Displacement Beacon (level requirement lowered from 24)

Shaman

• Earth Shock (up from 920%)

Blizzard (Source)

We agree that the mastery cap is not ideal. It is not completely urgent since you have to be rather mastery-stacked to hit it, even in current endgame gear. But knowing that problem will get worse, I would not be surprised if we looked into it in an upcoming patch.

EDIT: I believe PTR should currently (or shortly) have:
--Earth Shock damage increased by 25% (from 20%)
--Earthquake damage increased by 55% (from 30%)
--Frost Shock damage increased by 25%

Just Earthquake for now. Rather than buff both equally, putting the whole buff into EQ shifts some damage from SS towards EQ in the process to make things a little less random.

[DeathsDesign 92]

RIP the DH dream of not having our dps based on RNG resource generation.  I'm sick of 5-10 second windows where everything's on cooldown or I don't have enough resource to use an ability and I'm waiting for my autos to proc fury.

[Valks 2,373]

16 hours ago, DeathsDesign said:

RIP the DH dream of not having our dps based on RNG resource generation.  I'm sick of 5-10 second windows where everything's on cooldown or I don't have enough resource to use an ability and I'm waiting for my autos to proc fury.

I'm surprised they didn't go for a middle ground of 80% or so. Well, I'm not surprised because of Blizzard's history with extremes, but yeah.

[DeathsDesign 92]

8 hours ago, Blainie said:

I'm surprised they didn't go for a middle ground of 80% or so. Well, I'm not surprised because of Blizzard's history with extremes, but yeah.

Either 80% or keep the 100% but lower the proc chance for the additional damage so that the damage output from demon's blades and chaos strike balances out.  I'm beginning to think that Blizzard doesn't understand the concept of middle ground and only knows the two poles of brokenly OP or straight up unplayable.

[Valks 2,373]

9 minutes ago, DeathsDesign said:

Either 80% or keep the 100% but lower the proc chance for the additional damage so that the damage output from demon's blades and chaos strike balances out.  I'm beginning to think that Blizzard doesn't understand the concept of middle ground and only knows the two poles of brokenly OP or straight up unplayable.

I do wonder if there is some reason that we all miss that means they can't do that or something. Maybe they don't have any code behind it and just flip a switch of broken or broken, spending each patch toggling between the two?

On a more serious note, I do wonder why a more gradual reduction wasn't experimented with first. It's a big shame.

[DeathsDesign 92]

1 minute ago, Blainie said:

I do wonder if there is some reason that we all miss that means they can't do that or something. Maybe they don't have any code behind it and just flip a switch of broken or broken, spending each patch toggling between the two?

On a more serious note, I do wonder why a more gradual reduction wasn't experimented with first. It's a big shame.

I bet it has more to do with the actual values the equations produce.  In their attempt to balance say the DH when increasing the fury gen with the additional shadow damage plus the simmed amount of damage that chaos strike would do with full fury generation it put them way over the top and was preventing the use of other abilities because you could just spam chaos strike and get the most out of your damage.  I could be wrong lol.  I think a lot of it also has to do with the coding.  They may have the line of code they need but by inputting that code it breaks several other things which then in turn ruins the whole point of inputting the code.  Coding and development is a tricky thing, I just feel like even if they could find a middle of the road or even if they actually know of a middle of the road it's almost like it's off the table.   A perfect example of this is the Paladin charger which looks like their current charger with upgraded armor.  Or even the monk having only one color to their mount.  Don't get me wrong redesigned mounts and gear can be a good thing but I mean seriously, it's been 12 years.  New staff compared to back then, a lot of young blood in the mix as well.  Come up with something original for once.  Sorry just ranting now but yeah it's a tough one to figure out, can they do it and just don't know how, or is it impossible to do so they just don't try.

[Valks 2,373]

1 hour ago, DeathsDesign said:

I bet it has more to do with the actual values the equations produce.  In their attempt to balance say the DH when increasing the fury gen with the additional shadow damage plus the simmed amount of damage that chaos strike would do with full fury generation it put them way over the top and was preventing the use of other abilities because you could just spam chaos strike and get the most out of your damage.  I could be wrong lol.  I think a lot of it also has to do with the coding.  They may have the line of code they need but by inputting that code it breaks several other things which then in turn ruins the whole point of inputting the code. 

Definitely possible. I'm sure that they're not doing stuff like this on purpose - let's be honest, Blizzard do want us to be happy. So there must be a reason actually stopping things like this being implemented. Either it's easier to simply revert the change than to rebalance the spec around a different percentage, or they don't have the time to rewrite things as it stands.