There are some more major changes coming with Midnight, you may have missed! Among the Alpha patch notes, there are two significant improvements coming: to crowd control and diminishing returns.
Interrupt Buffs
The interrupt changes are pretty simple. Everyone gets longer lockout times on mobs! It seems casters have been causing a lot of trouble (especially with, ahem, “some” players not really using their interrupts properly), and so each class is getting a major increase in the interrupt duration! There are many different changes for each class and spec you can see below, but generally current 3-second timers move to 5, 5-second to 7, 4 to 6. The changes do not apply to PvP.
Hopefully, this should help those heroic souls who take the burden of most of the interrupts in the dungeon, while the other players get around 5-10 per run.
The Global Interrupt duration has been increased:
- Developers’ notes: We would like players to have more effective tools against caster enemies, particularly in dungeons. To that end, we are increasing interrupt durations across the board in PvE content.
- Death Knight
- Mind Freeze interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Demon Hunter
- Disrupt interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Druid
- Skull Bash interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Balance
- Solar Beam interrupt increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Evoker
- Quell interrupt duration increased to 6 seconds (was 4 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Hunter
- Beast Mastery and Marksmanship
- Counter Shot interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Survival
- Muzzle interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Beast Mastery and Marksmanship
- Mage
- Counterspell interrupt duration increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Monk
- Spear Hand Strike interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Paladin
- Rebuke interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Priest
- Shadow
- Silence duration increased to 5 seconds (was 4 seconds) and interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds in non-PvP combat (was 3 seconds).
- Silence duration increased to 4 seconds in PvP combat (was 3 seconds).
- Shadow
- Rogue
- Kick interrupt duration increased to 6 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Shaman
- Wind Shear interrupt duration increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Warlock
- Spell Lock interrupt duration increased to 7 seconds (was 5 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Demonology
- Axe Toss interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
- Warrior
- Pummel interrupt duration increased to 5 seconds (was 3 seconds). Does not affect PvP combat.
Diminishing Returns Changes
The changes affect both PvE and PvP, but in different ways. On the PvE side of things, creatures are losing their crowd control immunity entirely! Normally, after 3 stuns, a mob would become immune to getting stunned again, but that will be gone in Midnight. The stacking reduction of the duration of the stun will still occur, up to 1/16th duration, which will then reset back to normal duration after 16 seconds (down from the current 18). So it will be possible for a whole lot of players to chain-stun mobs if they need to.
There’s also some real good news for PvP players in Midnight, as their characters are going to get to do a whole lot more! In the opposite of the PvE move, CC immunity will now trigger much faster, after only two effects from the same category, instead of the current three. And while being stunned and interrupted less is a good thing, this will throw off the flow of PvP to a major extent.
DIMINISHING RETURNS
- Developers’ notes: We are making some adjustments to how diminishing returns work in World of Warcraft. “Diminishing returns” refers to the system that reduces the duration of crowd control effects if they are used repeatedly against the same target. In order to make crowd control less frustrating in PvP, players will now become immune after 2 applications of crowd control from the same category (ex. after being stunned twice, you are now immune). We felt that very low duration crowd controls were making it hard to cast spells and generally felt excessive. For PvE, we are removing the immunity after 3 stuns. Our primary goal here is to remove the need to track diminishing returns state on enemies. Instead of enforcing a hidden and complex system to reduce effectiveness of stuns, we are doing a pass on classes and making sure the amount of stuns and their durations are appropriate for combat.
- Diminishing return categories will reset after 16 seconds (was 18 seconds).
- Creatures will no longer be immune to stun effects after 3 applications of the effect. The duration of the stun effect will continue to diminish in half upon each application, until they reach 1/16th duration, where it will remain until 16 seconds have passed.
- In PvP combat, players will be fully immune to a crowd control category after 2 casts (was 3).
What do you think of these changes? Are they all for the better?
