The definitive WotLK raid buffs/class balance post

[Elsie]

Almost all of us never had both to begin with. Affliction locks scale badly and take up too many debuff slots. (someone will inevitably argue a destro lock can do it but -15% damage and a suboptimal group is fail).

The more I read this the more I think hybrids are hurt. A lot of the buffs making tri-spec hybrid classes unique and worthwhile in wotlk are considered being considered overlap.

I would point out many of these overlap buffs is SIGNIFICANTLY bad for 10 mans. Their intention is to allow less required raid stacking. However, they just significantly increased the necessity of raid stacking in 10-mans. There's no room there to bring in overlapping specs like in 25 man raids.

[Kayoto]

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Improved Devotion Aura will be entirely dependent on how mobile the fight is. There are sunwell fights and strategies that make Tree Form a bad idea.

ToL doesn't have the movement speed penalty anymore in WotLK.

[Nich]

I can't remember the last time I had both Commanding Shout *and* Blood Pact. Obviously we won't be tuned to need the missing HP anyway.

Really? We usually engineered groups for the token aff lock to give us imp, while the warrior tank put up comm shout.

I'm a glass full kind of guy....I looked at it and said "yay! 3 talent points I can move elsewhere!"

Isn't the 600 or so armour bonus from imp dev aura roughly the same as the extra armour from a higher tier of gear?

I objected to 5 points, but 3? I can probably handle.

[Elsie]

Isn't the 600 or so armour bonus from imp dev aura roughly the same as the extra armour from a higher tier of gear?

600 armor is a lot at 70. It's not as big a deal nor does it scale at 80. Could help in naxx a little though.

[Jensaarai]

Is anyone noticing the change to the Mana return talents?

JotW now hits 10 people (previously 3, correct?)

The question is how that works in a 25-man. Is it the 10 people that NEED it or based on some sort of group composition? Spriest talent has the same "limitation"

This is explained in the Blue post.

[Aleph]

Too bad most of the posters on the beta forums have no faith in the devs =/

That's because we've learned through experience not to. I say this as a prot pally since release who was forced into holy with patch 1.9.

[Grehn|Skipjack]

Blizz hired a pretty boss team of devs this time around. It really looks like they learned a lot from TBC. At least we won't be seeing Enh Shaman gear with tons of +SD this time.

[moduspwnens]

Personally, I'm quite impressed with the amount of blue posts made on the beta forums. It's still a little short of what I'd like, but a lot more than what we're used to.

[mandm413]

Isn't the 600 or so armour bonus from imp dev aura roughly the same as the extra armour from a higher tier of gear?

600 armor is a lot at 70. It's not as big a deal nor does it scale at 80. Could help in naxx a little though.

I thought that people were taking the talent for the bonus healing that applies to the whole raid/group now, not because of the armor. If it was only the armor bonus I would still probably skip it.

[Soltyr]

Blizz hired a pretty boss team of devs this time around.

No doubt on this and I'm glad of how is going the wotlk beta.
Though it's their supposed deadline to make a good job now: a so revamped raid buff system + downranking changes + other stuff... a lot of balance to test out.

[Fridmarr]

Personally, I'm quite impressed with the amount of blue posts made on the beta forums. It's still a little short of what I'd like, but a lot more than what we're used to.

Agreed the communication this time around has been much improved. I hope they continue this trend for the PTRs of major releases.

[Xorlandu]

Honestly just see this as making ret paladins still broken and in dire need of fixing.

And it's going to end up being like someone said above, it's all going to end up which class can deal the most damage cause the utility the classes bring will be the same and why bring the one that does less damage than the other when they both end up bringing the same exact raid utility.

[Chevalier]

Almost all of us never had both to begin with. Affliction locks scale badly and take up too many debuff slots. (someone will inevitably argue a destro lock can do it but -15% damage and a suboptimal group is fail).

The more I read this the more I think hybrids are hurt. A lot of the buffs making tri-spec hybrid classes unique and worthwhile in wotlk are considered being considered overlap.

I would point out many of these overlap buffs is SIGNIFICANTLY bad for 10 mans. Their intention is to allow less required raid stacking. However, they just significantly increased the necessity of raid stacking in 10-mans. There's no room there to bring in overlapping specs like in 25 man raids.

Are you kidding me...it was such a pain in the ass to make a good 10-man raid with all the buffs before, now it's easy.
It paves the way for 10-man raiding.

[Velgarn]

Honestly just see this as making ret paladins still broken and in dire need of fixing.

And it's going to end up being like someone said above, it's all going to end up which class can deal the most damage cause the utility the classes bring will be the same and why bring the one that does less damage than the other when they both end up bringing the same exact raid utility.

That is both the best most frightening part about it. What happens if they successfully do this AND make all DPS classes deal approximately the same DPS overall? No more QQ about class X, Y, Z doing more DPS while bringing utility, no more QQ about class A, B, C doing stupidly high damage.

It could work, if its done right... but I dunno if they will get the scaling and DPS formulas right or not.

[Kitsuna]

Very interesting changes. Especially the change to bloodlust. Shaman stacking for that last real stacking "exploit" I saw available.

On an unrelated note, avenging wrath is looking pretty lackluster in comparison to bloodlust these days. 30% haste vs. 30% damage doesn't seem too unequal, but when one affects 25 people and the other only 1, it seems a lot less so.