Patch 5.3 Notes

[Fenrìr]

Well, we can start with that GC interview, where he mentions no VP vendors in 5.4!?

did I miss this?!

[Flex]

I'm sure there will be other methods of acquiring gear that will have people bitching and moaning and wanting valor vendors back.

[halabar]

Valor vendors were certainly useful in T14. Somewhat less so in T15. I would expect them to be even more marginal in T16. They will rarely put items on those vendors that come close to BiS, so they are always a stopgap choice.

The question then becomes, will the valor upgrades still be there in T16? I would suspect so, unless they really want to slow things down. But I can't imagine what else we'd spend valor on if the valor vendors and the upgrades are gone.

Also, does this this mean the previous tier valor vendors are gone as well? If so, you will want to get any alts you plan on gearing geared up before 5.4 drops.

[Fetzie]

I don't see them removing the gearing path for alts.

[benebarba]

Valor vendors were certainly useful in T14. Somewhat less so in T15. I would expect them to be even more marginal in T16. They will rarely put items on those vendors that come close to BiS, so they are always a stopgap choice.

The question then becomes, will the valor upgrades still be there in T16? I would suspect so, unless they really want to slow things down. But I can't imagine what else we'd spend valor on if the valor vendors and the upgrades are gone.

Also, does this this mean the previous tier valor vendors are gone as well? If so, you will want to get any alts you plan on gearing geared up before 5.4 drops.

Could be they choose to scrap what they've been doing with valor and try something else. I mean, the current vendors required a raid rep (yeah, LFR gave you it), or daily rep (yeah, they made that easier)... so they were certainly less accessible than the cata valor vendors were (got valor? good. Have gear.).

Could also be the old ones remain but become sold for JP without (or with a lower) rep. JP seems to be nigh pointless at this point.

-- This entry brought to you by Benebarba's speculation generator --

[Fetzie]

We need better gear on the JP vendors. JP are totally useless. Put the 476, 496 stuff on the JP vendor for the current VP price, halve the price of the 522 stuff and reduce the rep requirements to neutral/friendly/honored.

[Flex]

JP will remain useless until the end of the expansion when they redo everything for the next expansion.

[Jabari]

Unrelated question:

Has anyone tried using the Resto Druid Treants? (Other than for taunting stuff )

I don't use my druid at all anymore (except for the farm and picking flowers), but a friend was going to start healing with hers so I was putting my UI back together as an example for her.

Messing around with it:
- My druid has ~22k spellpower, geared as Moonkin so tons of haste and not much spirit.
- The Treants cast Healing Touch 7 times each, for about 11-12k a cast.
- The "Swiftmend" when the Treant was summoned did ... *drumroll* ... 4k. The ticks from the "Swiftmend circle" were doing about 800.

Now, a mana-less 80k "mini Healing Stream Totem" every 20 seconds isn't awful by any stretch, but the Swiftmend part of it seems pretty pointless, and it could be somewhat bad if DPS stop casting for a second to move into the "fake" healing circle thinking it's a real Swiftmend circle. Is that intended to be that small?

(As an aside, I could certainly cast a Resto Treant with an enemy targeted - it cast the "fake swiftmend" on myself when I did that.)

[benebarba]

Lei Shen is supposed to soon have a guaranteed titan runestone drop:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9245914621#16

[Fenrìr]

Yea, on Tuesday.

[Klaudandus]

5.4 thread started!

[halabar]

Since everyone has marked me as the resident crybaby skyisfalling huntard scum here (did I get it all? really guys, you can lay off the insults already)

Classes
Hunter
General
[Requires a realm restart] Arcane Shot now deals 10% more damage.
[Requires a realm restart] Cobra Shot now deals 10% more damage.
[Requires a realm restart] Hunter Pets summoned by Stampede now only use auto-attacks against their target.
[Requires a realm restart] Steady Shot now deals 10% more damage.
Talents
[Requires a realm restart] Blink Strikes now increases pet basic damage by 40% (down from 50%). The teleportation effect now has a 10-yard minimum range, and cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds.

Hell, I don't know if this is a buff or a nerf... and the guys at EJ are too busy doing haste statistical analysis to figure it out.

[Chunes]

Since everyone has marked me as the resident crybaby skyisfalling huntard scum here (did I get it all? really guys, you can lay off the insults already)

Insults should never be taken seriously from me. There's no venom behind my words.

[Amirya]

Wait, you're a hunter?

When the hell did this happen?!

[Promdates]

Sand the guys at EJ are too busy doing haste statistical analysis to figure it out.

Actually right now we're thinking that Boe tripped over a cord and broke the site. It's been down for a while. The server is up, but no one's home apparently.

[halabar]

Sand the guys at EJ are too busy doing haste statistical analysis to figure it out.

Actually right now we're thinking that Boe tripped over a cord and broke the site. It's been down for a while. The server is up, but no one's home apparently.

Yeah, noticed that.. but even before that, far too much twirling around RPMM and haste in theoretical situations..

[bldavis]

Since everyone has marked me as the resident crybaby skyisfalling huntard scum here (did I get it all? really guys, you can lay off the insults already)

Insults should never be taken seriously from me. There's no venom behind my words.

same with mine...on here anyway
through vent or realid, you should be able to tell when i mean them

[halabar]

Some early napkin math is in, and with the reverted damage change to Blink, it's probably a wash, and a boost for SV and MM. MM does get closer to that Arcane spam rotation again, but whatever..

Also wondering if that Arcane spam MM rotation might work on Tortos where we are having problems, since pets are doing too much target switching... I know I'm loosing a lot of dps there.

[Nooska]

Sand the guys at EJ are too busy doing haste statistical analysis to figure it out.

Actually right now we're thinking that Boe tripped over a cord and broke the site. It's been down for a while. The server is up, but no one's home apparently.

Yeah, noticed that.. but even before that, far too much twirling around RPMM and haste in theoretical situations..

There was a reaosn I stopped (apart from not actually playing, I imagine I would start up again soon).

As for the hotfixes, clear buff to AS and CoS, slight nerf to stampede (off the top of my head, I don't believe they evr cast basic attacks, so its just the buff/debuffs that goe poof - pvp nerf prolly, unintended consequence).
BS is a nerf - which is think is weird - yes BS was the go to choice for the damage, because the other 2 talents were sucky for pve. The teleportation thing a reaction to pvp, not being able to get rid of a pet, but possibly a severe QoL nerf to pve - I'd take it however. Now BS has just been stright up nerfed and become passive (compare to the active before) - less damage bonus, andyou have no control over when the pet teleports - My judgement, kneejerk reaction to try and sort out the now most useful talent being picked too much combined with unintended consequences for pvp (which rightly should be fixed) - end result; "meh" - and a clear buff to anyone not using BS.

[Promdates]

Some early napkin math is in, and with the reverted damage change to Blink, it's probably a wash, and a boost for SV and MM. MM does get closer to that Arcane spam rotation again, but whatever..

Also wondering if that Arcane spam MM rotation might work on Tortos where we are having problems, since pets are doing too much target switching... I know I'm loosing a lot of dps there.

Are you not able to just set a pet on a target and forget it? CAN YOU NOT RON POPEIL IT?! (Set it and Forget it!)

[benebarba]

the stampede change was kind of surprising... I was fully expecting a 'growl will not be used by pets summoned during stampede', and maybe a 'they will not cast buffs/debuffs', but not a 'they will only autoattack'.

[halabar]

Some early napkin math is in, and with the reverted damage change to Blink, it's probably a wash, and a boost for SV and MM. MM does get closer to that Arcane spam rotation again, but whatever..

Also wondering if that Arcane spam MM rotation might work on Tortos where we are having problems, since pets are doing too much target switching... I know I'm loosing a lot of dps there.

Are you not able to just set a pet on a target and forget it? CAN YOU NOT RON POPEIL IT?! (Set it and Forget it!)

Nope. Hasn't been that way for a while. The old aggressive stance would do that, set a pet on one target, and it would stay on it. The new defensive means the pet will go after whatever you attack after a sec or two. If you use passive, you can send it on one target, but weird things happen with that, and you wind up with a pet back by your side.

[halabar]

the stampede change was kind of surprising... I was fully expecting a 'growl will not be used by pets summoned during stampede', and maybe a 'they will not cast buffs/debuffs', but not a 'they will only autoattack'.

According to femaledwarf, it's at best 1.5% of a BM's dps now, and even worse for SV/MM of course. So a lvl 87 spell you can forget to cast and not worry about. It's basically a flavor spell at this point.

For raiding I'm expecting a big nerf with these changes to burst, which hurts on burn phases. Soloing is gonna hurt here as well with the loss of burst, and the extra buffs from the stampede pets.

And according to the blues, there are more hunter nerfs coming in 5.4.

[Jabari]

Since everyone has marked me as the resident crybaby skyisfalling huntard scum here (did I get it all? really guys, you can lay off the insults already)

Hey wait, I thought that was me?!

Classes
Hunter
General
[Requires a realm restart] Arcane Shot now deals 10% more damage.
[Requires a realm restart] Cobra Shot now deals 10% more damage.
[Requires a realm restart] Hunter Pets summoned by Stampede now only use auto-attacks against their target.
[Requires a realm restart] Steady Shot now deals 10% more damage.
Talents
[Requires a realm restart] Blink Strikes now increases pet basic damage by 40% (down from 50%). The teleportation effect now has a 10-yard minimum range, and cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds.

(Aside: I don't PvP, at all)

Single-target this seems like a wash. *shrug*

For Blink Strikes: BM's AoE was ridiculous, but I'm not sure that this is the way to fix it (seems too small) - I'd have rather them reduced Cleave a touch and leave BS alone, but *shrug*. Teleport change really only matters on Tortos (or PvP), but BM isn't a great spec there as it is.

For Stampede: Looks like a PvP/Arena change to me - it seems pretty broken to be able to Stampede at the start of a 2v2 or 3v3 and pick up a whole lot of the group buffs (crit/attack speed/mastery) and/or debuffs (spell dmg/phy dmg/AoE armor) that the setup wouldn't have had available otherwise. Losing Rabid and the Basics hurts some obviously. How much damage was Stampede contributing before?


Also re: BM Theorycrafting: Which is more accurate - simcraft or FD? The reason I ask is that with Simcraft my DPS actually goes up (slightly) if I remove the Focus Fire line and simply never cast FF. (even with me being reforged crit > haste > mastery - surprising) FD gives me a higher DPS with Focus Fire in the rotation, but not much better (1%, maybe).

I'm considering setting up a WeakAura to notify me when Frenzy falls below 5s remaining and hitting FF then (when it's likely to just fall off, which does happen from time to time even in standstill fights). No idea if this is good or not, just a thought. *shrug*

[Worldie]

I believe I've read in several guildes up to 5.2, that perfect usage of FF for BM is such a minimal dps gain that you might be able to skip it entirely and not notice any loss in DPS (other than being annoyed by the constant UI graphic aura).