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Author Topic: Legion Pre-Expansion Patch Hits - everything changes  (Read 151257 times)
Xanthippe
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on: July 20, 2016, 08:09:08 AM

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/20151961/legion-pre-expansion-patch-notes-7-18-2016

At a glance:

New Transmogrification Collections System: Appearances
Revamped PvP and Honor System
Raids and Dungeons
Quests and World Events
Items and Itemization
Character Changes
Class Changes
Garrison
Collections
Professions
UI
Account
Graphics Engine

I don't know how to Disc Priest _at all_. I set my talents and bars, joined a quick pvp game, and could not actually heal people unless there was an enemy to attack around. It's so different. I ended up being 3rd in healing but felt lost.

Hopped on Druid (resto), set up, joined pvp game, it seemed much as it was - changes weren't so huge.

Tokens are back - they are account bound, and actual things that can be mailed and take up an inventory slot. Got one for each game (we won each).

Hunter is very different - set up but didn't play.

Checked forums. Full of tears over class changes.

Transmog is very cool - I like the new system.
Xanthippe
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Reply #1 on: July 20, 2016, 08:24:46 AM

See the link above for full patch notes - these are things that interest me most -

Equalized PvP Gear
Gear has been normalized in PvP combat. Characters entering a Skirmish Arena, Battleground, Rated Arena, Rated Battleground, or Ashran now receive an aura called Principles of War.
Principles of War removes all stats gained from gear (Strength, Stamina, Haste, etc.), disables gear related bonuses (like trinket effects and set bonuses), and gives the character stats based on their specializations, and increases based on overall item level. The goal is to provide a much more finely tuned and balanced PvP experience.

Hellfire Citadel
Enemies on Normal, Heroic, and Mythic difficulty now deal roughly 30% less damage.

Legendary Ring Quest Line
Players can no longer start the quest line for the legendary ring. Players currently on the legendary quest line have until the launch of Legion to complete it; at which point uncompleted quests will be removed from the quest log. DRILLING AND MANLINESS

Tap Changes
All creatures and NPCs can now be tapped by up to 5 other characters.

Items
Potion of Luck and Greater Potion of Luck no longer have an effect.

Specialization System Changes
Characters can now change between any of their specializations while out of combat. Action bar configurations and talent loadouts are saved for each specialization. As a result, Dual Specialization has been removed.

Talent System Changes
Players may now change talents freely when in any rested XP area. The Inscription profession can craft consumable items that allow for this to be done in the field. In addition, after queuing into an instanced dungeon, raid, or PvP content, players have a grace period during which they may change talents freely.

Glyph System Changes
The Glyph panel has been removed from the game. Some minor glyphs that had a cosmetic effect that does not apply to a specific spell have been converted into cosmetic items that provide the same effects as before.
Some minor glyphs that made cosmetic alterations to a specific spell have been added to the spell itself in the spellbook.

Rendakor
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Reply #2 on: July 20, 2016, 08:57:54 AM

Wow, most of that sounds terrible. Inscription gone, character/spec/talent identity gone, Honor is back to marks that take up inventory space, everyone's the same in PVP, ugh. The transmog changes are the only thing there that sounds good. Glad I read those notes; I was starting to get a WoW-itch.

"i can't be a star citizen. they won't even give me a star green card"
Paelos
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Reply #3 on: July 20, 2016, 09:21:59 AM

So they are just giving up on PVP gear? I'm assuming now people are only doing PVP for fun and customization rewards, which is fine, but still that's a serious departure from what they wanted PVP to be way back when.

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Merusk
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Reply #4 on: July 20, 2016, 09:44:01 AM

The PVP changes are - yet again - another attempt to make Arena PVP a viable E-sport. When everyone is on the same playing field skill becomes a bigger contributor. The thing they STILL don't get is nobody gives a fuck about MMO PVP enough to watch it as a sport. Stop trying.

That said, it WILL be nice to not have PVP concerns nerfing useful and unique PVE skills and gear anymore.

Tap changes are very nice. Means I actually bother to help people when completing quests in Beta and there isn't the competition for spawns there once was. It's still there it's just not as intense.

Class changes I'm lukewarm on. Some are OK but i do miss skills on some specs.

Priest:
Haven't touched the Priest at all, trying to heal in Warlords as Holy made me hate life. As Discipline there was a player better than me by about 3% so he was more useful in raids. Two disc healers was never a solved problem, so I stopped caring. Maybe they fixed it but probably not.

Death Knight:
I miss some of the skills on Unholy, like Anti-Magic Barrier (PVP Only now) and Icebound Fortitude, but overall once I learned the new rotation I like it a LOT better than the old method. Adding boils and breaking them is a lot of fun. The QOL change so my runes are shown on my character in addition to my resource bar (like rogue energy) is fantastic. Good job all around.  

The talent to add a second pet is fun, but doesn't seem to do a lot. It's a bit buggy too, because when changing zones or dismounting the 2nd guy never shows up. You have to resummon your pet to get him back. More of a hassle than anything else.

Also, the talent that changes your ghoul into an abomination doesn't seem like it ups the ghouls damage much. I didn't parse and I was low gear level because *beta* so maybe it is bigger than it seemed thrashing level 101 trash mobs.

Frost is still boring-ass "wait for the oblivion/ winds proc, then hit buttan" It may be better DPS but you'll never find me enjoying frost.

Didn't try Blood at all. I don't tank anymore, too much of a PITA to control a rotation, control mob position and strangle cats who step out of line.

Hunter

Marks is fun. I didn't try Lone Wolf but I like some of the mechanics here. The ability to tag and then spray shit with Multishot was great. I just kept losing my pet when trying to level. The pet is very, very squishy now. Then again I don't know if I had him in Tenacity mode.. I should check.

Beast Hunter IS beast mode. I really liked the change to the "call a wild animal" talent. It's a much shorter duration than it was, BUT the beast seems stronger. Also you get a CD proc so you can have 2 or 3 up at a time. (Maybe more, the most I got to spawn has been 3 and I haven't done a dungeon.)  The cosmetic change to pull any beast from the zone is fun. I get spiders, birds, demon-dogs all attacking things alongside my pet.  Kill command procs a lot more often and he does great dps. The trade-off being I can't dps. Oh well.

When combined with the legendary weapon that gives you a second pet, the spec becomes really fun. You feel like a Beast Master instead of just a hunter with a big ass pet now. Very good themeing here.

Survival I haven't touched. I get that there's people who have - for years - wanted a melee hunter. I'm one of those who's always hated the idea.  I do not miss traps at all and these guys are welcome to have them. Outside of the freeze trap they were a pain in the ass to manage and I hated that they were mandatory to throw into my rotation to max DPS. Good riddance to bad mechanics.


The Transmog changes are fucking awesome. If I play again I can throw away nearly 4 characters worth of full banks and void storage because of it. Not only that, but I have access to gear I'd thrown away ages ago when I didn't think Blizzard was ever going to introduce an appearance change system. My favorite is the ONLY Mail eyepatch in the game, from a quest in Bladed Spires in Burning Crusade. It had a gold skull on it and looked great.

I saw so many younger hunters wearing in their transmog sets and I had it at one point, too. Only I'd done the quest back in actual BC days and thrown it away about halfway through WOTLK because there was no transmog and I needed bank space. I was not happy when the system was announced about a month later. Fuck. Now I've got it back. Yay.

I'm convinced it's packrats like me, sending the storage requirements ever-higher, that prompted this system. It's been suggested for years but now they've chosen to implement it. All I can point at is declining revenues and need to consolidate database space. I'd bet it's the same reason they flipped a lot of things that weren't Toys into being toys. I had 7 different "pokemon" helmets because each character had one. It's a toy now, I don't need to worry about it.


The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Paelos
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Reply #5 on: July 20, 2016, 10:08:46 AM

The PVP changes are - yet again - another attempt to make Arena PVP a viable E-sport. When everyone is on the same playing field skill becomes a bigger contributor. The thing they STILL don't get is nobody gives a fuck about MMO PVP enough to watch it as a sport. Stop trying.

Esports are supposed to have a viable skill. MMO PVP doesn't have one even if you try and turn it into stock car racing.

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Xanthippe
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Reply #6 on: July 20, 2016, 11:51:43 AM

Honor is back to marks that take up inventory space

Big change here is that they are account bound, so you can collect them on one character and use them on another.
Ginaz
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Reply #7 on: July 20, 2016, 01:10:49 PM

The PVP changes are - yet again - another attempt to make Arena PVP a viable E-sport. When everyone is on the same playing field skill becomes a bigger contributor. The thing they STILL don't get is nobody gives a fuck about MMO PVP enough to watch it as a sport. Stop trying.

That said, it WILL be nice to not have PVP concerns nerfing useful and unique PVE skills and gear anymore.

Tap changes are very nice. Means I actually bother to help people when completing quests in Beta and there isn't the competition for spawns there once was. It's still there it's just not as intense.

Class changes I'm lukewarm on. Some are OK but i do miss skills on some specs.

Priest:
Haven't touched the Priest at all, trying to heal in Warlords as Holy made me hate life. As Discipline there was a player better than me by about 3% so he was more useful in raids. Two disc healers was never a solved problem, so I stopped caring. Maybe they fixed it but probably not.

Death Knight:
I miss some of the skills on Unholy, like Anti-Magic Barrier (PVP Only now) and Icebound Fortitude, but overall once I learned the new rotation I like it a LOT better than the old method. Adding boils and breaking them is a lot of fun. The QOL change so my runes are shown on my character in addition to my resource bar (like rogue energy) is fantastic. Good job all around.  

The talent to add a second pet is fun, but doesn't seem to do a lot. It's a bit buggy too, because when changing zones or dismounting the 2nd guy never shows up. You have to resummon your pet to get him back. More of a hassle than anything else.

Also, the talent that changes your ghoul into an abomination doesn't seem like it ups the ghouls damage much. I didn't parse and I was low gear level because *beta* so maybe it is bigger than it seemed thrashing level 101 trash mobs.

Frost is still boring-ass "wait for the oblivion/ winds proc, then hit buttan" It may be better DPS but you'll never find me enjoying frost.

Didn't try Blood at all. I don't tank anymore, too much of a PITA to control a rotation, control mob position and strangle cats who step out of line.

Hunter

Marks is fun. I didn't try Lone Wolf but I like some of the mechanics here. The ability to tag and then spray shit with Multishot was great. I just kept losing my pet when trying to level. The pet is very, very squishy now. Then again I don't know if I had him in Tenacity mode.. I should check.

Beast Hunter IS beast mode. I really liked the change to the "call a wild animal" talent. It's a much shorter duration than it was, BUT the beast seems stronger. Also you get a CD proc so you can have 2 or 3 up at a time. (Maybe more, the most I got to spawn has been 3 and I haven't done a dungeon.)  The cosmetic change to pull any beast from the zone is fun. I get spiders, birds, demon-dogs all attacking things alongside my pet.  Kill command procs a lot more often and he does great dps. The trade-off being I can't dps. Oh well.

When combined with the legendary weapon that gives you a second pet, the spec becomes really fun. You feel like a Beast Master instead of just a hunter with a big ass pet now. Very good themeing here.

Survival I haven't touched. I get that there's people who have - for years - wanted a melee hunter. I'm one of those who's always hated the idea.  I do not miss traps at all and these guys are welcome to have them. Outside of the freeze trap they were a pain in the ass to manage and I hated that they were mandatory to throw into my rotation to max DPS. Good riddance to bad mechanics.


The Transmog changes are fucking awesome. If I play again I can throw away nearly 4 characters worth of full banks and void storage because of it. Not only that, but I have access to gear I'd thrown away ages ago when I didn't think Blizzard was ever going to introduce an appearance change system. My favorite is the ONLY Mail eyepatch in the game, from a quest in Bladed Spires in Burning Crusade. It had a gold skull on it and looked great.

I saw so many younger hunters wearing in their transmog sets and I had it at one point, too. Only I'd done the quest back in actual BC days and thrown it away about halfway through WOTLK because there was no transmog and I needed bank space. I was not happy when the system was announced about a month later. Fuck. Now I've got it back. Yay.

I'm convinced it's packrats like me, sending the storage requirements ever-higher, that prompted this system. It's been suggested for years but now they've chosen to implement it. All I can point at is declining revenues and need to consolidate database space. I'd bet it's the same reason they flipped a lot of things that weren't Toys into being toys. I had 7 different "pokemon" helmets because each character had one. It's a toy now, I don't need to worry about it.



I got my hunter to 100 yesterday (had been like 96 for probably a year+, DK and pally are 100) and banged off the last few levels as survival.  It was a blast!  Put a dps pet on a mob to hold agro and stuff dies quick.  Reminded me of the White Lion from Warhammer Online.  Transmog is nice but you have to log into each of your characters for it to update to everything you have.  Not being able to hide your helm and the reduced camera range are annoying.  We'll see how everything shakes out after the expac has been out a few months but I'm not hating things at this moment.  Of course, the WoW forums have been lit up by people saying Blizzard ruined their class and how they're cancelling their sub. Ohhhhh, I see.  Same shit you hear every time a new expac is released so I wouldn't worry about any of that yet.
Merusk
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Reply #8 on: July 20, 2016, 06:41:09 PM

Not being able to hide your helm and the reduced camera range are annoying. 

See my comment in the WOW in 2016 thread for my opinion of the camera change. It's fucking terrible. "not that bad" is a bullshit answer from anyone who claims it.

Helmet and Cloak hides are still in there. It's a transmogrify option, though. It only shows up when you're talking to an ethereal. It's the first option on the helm or equipment slot. 0 Cost.

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Ginaz
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Reply #9 on: July 21, 2016, 08:20:49 AM

Not being able to hide your helm and the reduced camera range are annoying. 

See my comment in the WOW in 2016 thread for my opinion of the camera change. It's fucking terrible. "not that bad" is a bullshit answer from anyone who claims it.

Helmet and Cloak hides are still in there. It's a transmogrify option, though. It only shows up when you're talking to an ethereal. It's the first option on the helm or equipment slot. 0 Cost.

I know about having to use the transmog npc npc to hide your helm, I didn't word it correctly when I wrote it.  It's still annoying having to do it that way but not really a big deal.  The camera change is definitely a head scratcher.  I usually like to be able to zoom the camera out quite a distance away from my character so I can see my surroundings better.   
kaid
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Reply #10 on: July 21, 2016, 11:28:35 AM

You can still pan back pretty far I was doing some raiding last night and was able to pull it back to my normal viewing distance in a raid without a problem.
Merusk
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Reply #11 on: July 21, 2016, 01:19:34 PM

It's still not as far as it was, the viewing angle is much narrower.



That's from Beta. If they changed it when it went live that's new.

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kaid
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Reply #12 on: July 22, 2016, 09:44:42 AM

One thing to note though is a lot of the really panned back stuff is not the normal camera range you have to use console commands or add ons to push it back farther. It is mostly those that got blocked so if you did not do that then you won't notice much of a change. I can still pan back far enough in a raid to have a good situational view of everything going on. I have been running LFR's just to test classes in a pretty easy mode.
Merusk
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Reply #13 on: July 22, 2016, 09:46:15 AM

I don't think I had a view range addin on my account. I could be mistaken, though.

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Ginaz
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Reply #14 on: July 22, 2016, 01:57:25 PM

I don't think I had a view range addin on my account. I could be mistaken, though.

I didn't either and the camera doesn't pan as far back as it did.
Xanthippe
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Reply #15 on: July 23, 2016, 11:45:47 AM

Not only can you hide helms and cloaks, you can hide shoulders. Finally!
Paelos
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Reply #16 on: July 23, 2016, 11:47:56 AM

Not only can you hide helms and cloaks, you can hide shoulders. Finally!

Haha, so they finally got around to a request from Vanilla on that one.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Xanthippe
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Reply #17 on: July 29, 2016, 07:58:54 AM

Realm hop no longer works the same way. Now you only change servers when you join the zone the leader is in. So, you can use it to visit others' garrisons, but you can't use it to find rare spawns and so on. Which makes it difficult to find popular stuff, again, because of the server merges.

On the plus side, farming for mob drops can now be done in groups, such that everyone by default tags each mob. You don't have to hit it to get loot from it, and you get loot from every mob someone in the group tags. (At least, I think that's how it works).

Garrison missions no longer award gold, and garrison armor/weapons are only worth 5c.

Zetor
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Reply #18 on: July 29, 2016, 09:10:12 AM

Gave it a whirl on my two 'mains' going through a few timewalking dungeons and a leveling alt with some questing / leveling dungeons / pvp, random kvetching:

Resto shaman (100): healing is still good. I miss grounding and tremor totem, though, and not too happy about having to talent into ascendance. I don't understand why flameshock and lava burst cost mana while lightning bolt is mana-free... dudes, spamming a weak attack spell is boring as shit and it's not like being able to cast FS/LVB during healing downtime would blow up the damage meters -- especially since resto shamans get Lava Surge procs now, too. Not spending my precious healing mana on sub-par damage with no other benefits (wru Elemental Blast?!). Oh yeah, chain lightning costs negligible mana (320), but that spell is a bad joke as resto anyway. The new gust of wind thing is pretty cool, though, and I love the built-in totem projection.

Prot warrior (100): pretty good, I dig the new animations. The battlecry sound is hilarious (female gnome), but I'll probably mute it after a few days. Not a fan of the rage dumps: shield block is ok, ignore pain is just glorified shield barrier, and focus rage is some weird-ass burst buildup ability that makes sense for a dps spec but not so much for tanking. What was wrong with Heroic Strike? Build up rage -> spend however much is needed on defensives to stay alive -> spend the rest on putting damage in the enemy's face without interrupting your rotation, simple. I know that Focused Rage is basically the same thing since it's a GCD-free ability, but it lacks the punch and visceral feeling of old HS/Cleave. I don't like losing intimidating shout and hamstring (even though thunderclap is better all around), they were just iconic abilities to me. Increased timers on cooldowns are fine, closer to ohshit buttons than regular mitigation abilities you had to pop even on normal pulls.

Blood DK (90->97): I can see that the class is pretty powerful now with much greater control over self-heals and mitigation than ever before. But the way they rejiggered the abilities rubs me the wrong way -- now the main disease applying skill is AOE + charge-based (needs no runes / generates no RP) + also serves as an aoe attack skill. Heart strike is back, and it's now the snare ability too... but most runes should be spent on the new marrowsomething ability that generates bone shield charges because pretty much everything depends on boneshield having as high uptime as possible. Death Strike is now a RP dump (the RP dump I should say), which is weird as hell and completely turns the previous resource system on its head, now being conspiciously similar to Shield Barrier / Ignore Pain for prot warriors.

I can see prot warrior and resto shaman growing on me, especially with the shiny new artifact things... but man, Blood DK is basically a whole new class now, would have to retrain my muscle memory for it. I'm too old for this shit!
« Last Edit: July 29, 2016, 09:13:03 AM by Zetor »

SurfD
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Reply #19 on: July 29, 2016, 08:34:00 PM

Will  have to see how the artifact weapons affect Blood, but I don't agree on the "more control over self healing" thing.  We literally have one self heal now (deathstrike), no more ghoul sac, and since it requires RP and there is no "burst" RP generator atm, you can pretty easily RP starve yourself if you are trying to desperately get your HP up with DS.  It also heals for shit (at least from what i see running Timewalking), and shields for a lot less now, though that just might be me not DSing at optimal times.   Vamp blood does let us get a good amount of health back while Deathstriking, but it just doesn't seem nearly as effective as it was pre-patch.  Pre patch, I could practically keep myself alive through a huge ass bad pull if the healer went down by rotating cooldowns.  Now, I just prolong the inevitable death by a handful of seconds, since I run out of cooldowns to rotate pretty damn fast.

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Zetor
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Reply #20 on: July 29, 2016, 08:58:41 PM

Oh yeah, overall healing ability is down, but imo blood DKs now have more control over when to use their self-healing / mitigation instead of just dropping death strikes as the main rune consumer / RP generator. Now you can double up on blood plague via DRW (double the healing -- it can get quite significant), deathstrike is an RP ability instead of requiring runes, and the ability to pre-stack bone shield charges depending on incoming damage. DS *is* a lot closer to Ignore Pain and Guard, only it's reactive instead of proactive*... and when it comes to cooldowns, I agree that ghoul sac and old rune tap were way better in general. But in the brave new world of Legion, every class needs to lose their survivability cooldowns (even tanks, apparently) because reasons.

* side note: one of the preferred talents for prot warriors makes Ignore Pain absorb up to 100% more damage depending on how low the health of the warrior is when using the ability. I wonder where THAT mechanic is from!  awesome, for real
« Last Edit: July 29, 2016, 09:05:33 PM by Zetor »

SurfD
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Reply #21 on: July 30, 2016, 01:45:35 AM

sometimes i wonder about abilities they pruned out.

Enhance for example, no only has a single DPS cooldown (wolves), and almost no assist healing at all (unless you spec into the currently utterly garbage gimped version of healing rain).

Also really missing Tranq shot on my BM hunter.  Every bloody time an enrage icon pops up on a boss, or a buff i used to be able to dispell (the goddamned shield from the priests in Blue Dragonshrine timewalking for example) I instinctively reach for the button, but nope, gone.

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Rokal
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Reply #22 on: August 01, 2016, 01:24:07 PM

Enhance for example, no only has a single DPS cooldown (wolves), and almost no assist healing at all (unless you spec into the currently utterly garbage gimped version of healing rain).

They get a couple more DPS cooldown options through talents, which seems to be how most specs work. Artifact weapons will also give a couple abilities and CDs per spec once we get them. Looks like the first ability Enhancement gets out of their artifact weapon is a 1min DPS CD for example.

Quote
Doom Winds: Unleashes the inner power of the Doomhammer, causing all auto attacks to trigger Windfury, and increasing damage dealt by Windfury by 200% for 6 sec.

I've messed around with half of my characters over the past week, and most of the changes seem pretty positive. My biggest gripe (other than not liking the massive Brewmaster Monk changes) is that in an effort to differentiate specs, they've made some really iconic class abilities spec-specific. For example, Outlaw rogue doesn't have Evasion. I love the new spec and it's a ton of fun to play, but it's weird that it doesn't have this really important defensive ability that I've relied on when playing my rogue for over 10 years.

Instead of organically building up spec-distinction in Legion with new or more-powerful versions of abilities that define each spec, it seems like they took the existing ability kits for each class to divorce court.

Brief thoughts on what I've played as well at 100:

Rogue (Outlaw) - Outlaw is the replacement for Combat spec. It finally feels like it has its own identity, and I really enjoyed playing it from 90-100 last week. They get a couple ranged abilities which are part of their normal rotation even if you're in melee, and stealth is completely de-emphasized for them. They still have stealth and Ambush but there isn't a big incentive/need to use them. Whether you open combat from stealth or with a small ranged attack seems like a relatively minor distinction in the grand scheme of things, since the pull is such a small fraction of time spent in combat in WoW, but it gives the spec an entirely different feel. Instead of slowly sneaking up to a target, incapacitating them, and then attacking them while they are defenseless, you are just quickly shooting them from the hip with a pistol and then going to town when they get in your face.

Blade Flurry has been redesigned so that instead hitting your target + 1 nearby for an energy regen penalty, you now hit your target + all nearby (for 35% damage to them) for the energy regen penalty. Shores up one of the biggest weaknesses of the spec while still keeping the flavor. Roll-the-bones is the replacement for Slice n Dice (now a talent) which gives you one or more of 6 random buffs. It's pretty fun to get lucky and activate all the buffs, turning into a monster for ~30 seconds, but it's going to be frustrating in competitive settings where your effectiveness will vary wildly based on RNG.

The only thing stopping me from playing a rogue in Legion is knowing how much of a burden melee will probably still be to groups compared to ranged, and knowing that I'll probably have 30+ min dungeon queues without a tank or healer spec option. The melee vs ranged thing was a huge problem in Challenge Mode dungeons in WoD. In some boss fights there were times our dps warrior literally did nothing while ranged continued to attack normally, and given how big of a emphasis this expansion seems to have on dungeons I don't want to be in the same position.

Druid (Balance) - Balance was my least-favorite spec in the game for the past 2 expansions. I hated the Eclipse bar, and how you had to awkwardly focus on and play around that cumbersome mechanic without any payoff relative to other simpler dps specs. They removed it and the spec is finally fun to play again, though it still plays like mage-lite. You still don't really have the breadth of ability options, or the utility of a mage, but at least the spec is fun & easy to play again.

Hunter (Survival, Marks) - I had high hopes for Survival but after playing around with it, it feels very underwhelming. There wasn't enough interaction between abilities at 100 and Mongoose Bite, the core ability of the spec, wasn't very fun or interesting to use. There wasn't a way to extend the damage-increase buff, so you had no reason to do anything besides mash the ability when you capped 3 charges of it. I spent most of my time spamming no-cost filler attacks and waiting for energy or cooldowns. I think this will be fixed at least partially by the Survival Artifact which adds some much-needed ability interaction.

I have mixed feelings about the new Marksman spec. It mostly feels the same as before, and even inherited a few Surv abilities like Explosive Shot. The big new gimmick of the spec, Marking targets and then using Marked Shot, just felt too passive/random at 100. Outside of that mechanic, the spec doesn't seem like it has changed much and there isn't much to write about.

Monk (Brewmaster) - They gutted the spec, removed Chi from it as a resource, and moved the spec to be much more passive. Purifying Brew now has a 21-second cooldown, only removes half your Stagger, and shares a CD with other abilities. The spec plays very differently now and overall feels a lot less effective and interesting. More than any other class/spec in the game in Legion, Brewmaster was hit extremely hard with ability pruning and nerfs, and all (allegedly) in the interest of "better matching the fantasy of the spec". I don't even agree with that logic as the old spec felt like it hit the "evasive drunken master" vibe better than the new one. Even if they were right that the old spec didn't match the "drunken master" gameplay fantasy well, what about everyone who bought into and enjoyed the gameplay fantasy they *did* put in the game for the past 4 years?  I had already decided I didn't want to play a tank in Legion, but I'm still upset that they so dramatically changed a spec that people had invested so much time and energy into. This would be the equivalent of removing Runes and Self-heals from Blood DKs, leaving only Runic Power, and turning the spec into a off-flavor of Protection Warriors.

The reality of the situation is that the spec was too self-sufficient and capable of preventing damage, so they have effectively killed it in the interest of giving tank-survival gameplay back to healers.
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Reply #23 on: August 01, 2016, 02:27:21 PM

This would be the equivalent of removing Runes and Self-heals from Blood DKs, leaving only Runic Power, and turning the spec into a off-flavor of Protection Warriors.

Reading this thread, it sounds like basically that happened.

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Reply #24 on: August 01, 2016, 02:33:46 PM

They still have runes. How useful those are is questionable.

As for giving healers Tank Survival gameplay again. Hahahjah.  Yeah on top of the bs raid/ group survival gameplay that is ALSo on top of Keep your ass out of the fire gameplay. 

Healers are going to be rare this expansion if things didn't majorly change from Draenor. I'm not bothering to even look. Holy was fucked and I doubt it's unfucked for priests.  I know discipline has been complaining in beta they don't know if they should heal or DPS or how to do both. 

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Reply #25 on: August 01, 2016, 02:35:50 PM

Instead of organically building up spec-distinction in Legion with new or more-powerful versions of abilities that define each spec, it seems like they took the existing ability kits for each class to divorce court.
They already did this once with the talent system back in...Cata? Pandaria? And it was terrible.

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Reply #26 on: August 01, 2016, 02:51:50 PM

Healers are going to be rare this expansion if things didn't majorly change from Draenor. I'm not bothering to even look. Holy was fucked and I doubt it's unfucked for priests.  I know discipline has been complaining in beta they don't know if they should heal or DPS or how to do both. 

Impressions I've heard of Holy have been positive, but Disc sounds like it's going to be very awkward to play if you're the only healer.

They made tanking more simplistic and accessible in Legion, but less interesting/satisfying. Then they went the exact opposite way for Healers. It'll be interesting to see how that impacts populations for both.
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Reply #27 on: August 02, 2016, 03:52:56 AM

Enhance for example, no only has a single DPS cooldown (wolves), and almost no assist healing at all (unless you spec into the currently utterly garbage gimped version of healing rain).

They get a couple more DPS cooldown options through talents, which seems to be how most specs work. Artifact weapons will also give a couple abilities and CDs per spec once we get them. Looks like the first ability Enhancement gets out of their artifact weapon is a 1min DPS CD for example.
Other than Ascendance, nothing else in their talent tree currently is really viable as a dps cooldown, and current sims essentially put Ascendance behind just taking Landslide for the pretty much permanant passive 8% agility increase.

I guess you could spec  ascendance if you needed really great burst on priority targets on a 3 minute cooldown, but on just about every raid fight,  the passive 8% agi is just too difficult to pass up.

The Artifact may help, true, but having one viable dps cooldown is still annoying.

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Reply #28 on: August 02, 2016, 04:53:42 AM

http://www.wowhead.com/guides/classes/shaman/enhancement/rotation

Looks to me like Enhancement is meant to be just that - Enhancing others - rather than self-buffing DPS. If done right it look good on meters individually, but groups with and without Enh. shamans should have a noticeable difference in outputs.  There's no more raid-wide buffs so this seems to be the slot they're pushing Enh. Shamen towards.

Healers are going to be rare this expansion if things didn't majorly change from Draenor. I'm not bothering to even look. Holy was fucked and I doubt it's unfucked for priests.  I know discipline has been complaining in beta they don't know if they should heal or DPS or how to do both. 

Impressions I've heard of Holy have been positive, but Disc sounds like it's going to be very awkward to play if you're the only healer.

They made tanking more simplistic and accessible in Legion, but less interesting/satisfying. Then they went the exact opposite way for Healers. It'll be interesting to see how that impacts populations for both.

The problem they constantly run into with Holy priests are that Druid heals provide better HoT and are generally better for raids because of the "dot and move on" nature. HOTs are also nice because you don't have to wait until someone's "damaged enough" to throw out a heal. 300% spell power for Rejuv., 325% plus another 200% for Lifebloom vs. 425% for Flash Heal, the only saving grace for the priest is the lower mana cost, so it's not as hard on them to overheal. Just sucks to be you if you've got to move.

This generally left Holy Priests as healing the Tanks and bleeding into the Melee group with any group heals. If they deal big group damage to make priests big group-heals a factor, your tanks are now ALSO taking spike damage, meaning the Priest has to focus them more.

Lifebloom/ Tranq has remained a significantly more powerful spell. Sure, the math says that Divine Hymn is great but in practice you only blow Hymn so the Druids heal more. 

That's before the whole mess of priest heals working on groups vs not working on groups that required your raid to be mindful of their own positioning as well as your own knowledge of where people were at.

All of the above is what made Disc. so much better from a gameplay perspective. Your spells were more like the druids "tag and move on" with faster cast times. The proactive vs. reactive healing meant a lower stress threshold AND you could anticipate bigger spikes and counter for them. It made the player feel engaged vs. overwhelmed when things got rough. Holy lacked that and still does from what I can tell.

The biggest 'about time' is they finally abandoned the dumbass Chakra modes. They didn't like Warriors doing stance switching but they made priests do it for two more expansions.  awesome, for real
« Last Edit: August 02, 2016, 05:15:28 AM by Merusk »

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Reply #29 on: August 02, 2016, 07:33:48 AM

My BM hunter is severely underpowered and unsatisfactory to play. The change to Aspect of the Cheetah (very brief speed boost on a 3 minute timer) is huge, as is the removal of frost trap, both of which has been mostly unchanged since vanilla. MM is a little better, but I prefer the playstyle of BM. Survival in Wrath was probably my favorite non-BM build but Survival now is nothing like that - I have no interest in a melee hunter.

My priest, druid, monk and mage all have better mobility than my hunter now.

Disc priest is like a completely new class - very little like disc has been for a long time now. I've played shadow only for farming old content, and holy not at all yet.

Resto druid feels similar as pre-patch.

Currently leveling up a monk (69) as WW. DKs are putting out ridiculous damage in the little dungeons. Leveling through dungeons is quick.

Planning on leveling hunter and priest,  regardless, since they're my oldest characters. How much I play them once I hit max level, time will tell.
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Reply #30 on: August 02, 2016, 01:58:22 PM

If you're talking live, then yes BM hunters are totally gimped right now.

The reason for this is they are balanced around having their artifact. All abilities assume you have 2 pets live all the time, which means right now you're gimped.

DKs always do best at low gear levels and drop-off the cliff once the second raid content is seen. So the first month or so people complain when they're unholy killing machines again, then forget about it come the end of the expansion. We've seen this cycle since they were introduced, and it was confirmed by the old devs at one point that this was a balancing strategy they planned for, dumb as it is.  I'd hope the new group abandoned the strat, but it will remain to be seen.

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Reply #31 on: August 02, 2016, 03:17:44 PM

how's enh shaman these days. also can they use swords yet, or sword transmog
luckton
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Reply #32 on: August 02, 2016, 04:22:32 PM

how's enh shaman these days. also can they use swords yet, or sword transmog

I believe they can sword transmog, but they can't actually use swords. Don't quote me. :P

Oh, Merusk, someone found a solution to your camera zoom problem.

https://www.wowace.com/addons/maxcam/

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SurfD
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Reply #33 on: August 02, 2016, 07:36:40 PM

how's enh shaman these days. also can they use swords yet, or sword transmog
Unfortunately enhance cant do swords.   I find mine a little  bit more boring then  they used to be, as the removal of totems and lack of cool downs makes the game play somewhat boring.  Basically just keep Flametongue / Frostbrand debuffs up, hit Boulderfist on cooldown, and spam Stormstrike / Lavalash / Crash lightning whenever you have enough maelstrom for whichever one is highest on the priority list.

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Reply #34 on: August 04, 2016, 02:53:25 PM

removal of totems, eh

what else remarkable has happened to that class anyway
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