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Patch 7.0.3 Hotfixes - September 23
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
Achievements
Classes
Developers’ Notes: As we discussed last week, we’ve been gathering a massive amount of data based on how each spec has been performing in this first week of raids and Mythic Keystone dungeons, so that we can make a number of tuning changes with next week’s realm maintenance. The overall goal of these changes is to buff up some underperforming specs while also reining in a couple of over-performers, without dramatically changing anyone’s playstyle or causing them to feel as though the spec they chose to focus on became the “wrong choice.”
All of these class changes will be applied during the next scheduled weekly maintenance period in each region. Note that there are also a number of PvP-specific changes, which are noted separately below.
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Warlock (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
PvP
Developers’ Notes: While many of the above changes are beneficial for PvP, some specs need additional tuning for PvP situations. Some of the PvP- specific changes we’re making are intended to counteract the above, while others are simply intended to help overall PvP balance.
Class Halls
Dungeons and Raids
Items
Professions
Quests
Tanks PvP Balance
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
We lost 10% total dmg, had our PvP templates dmg lowered on top of that and now we also take 25% more dmg.
All three of these changes effect INSTANCED PvP where there was no possible way you could say with the lowered PvP template PLUS we do 15% less dmg to players already before these changes that this seems fair at all.
Thanks for the post about this. We understand your concern. Tanks in PvP are a real design and balance challenge for us and it may take time for us to get it just right. Unlike other PvP games (Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm for example), tanks in World of Warcraft are not tuned or designed around tanking other players. World of Warcraft tanks are primarily designed to withstand the onslaught of raid bosses, which do considerably more damage than players. While tanks have a lot of active mitigation buttons, they also have a lot of passive mitigation and survivability. During beta, we applied a lot of spell multipliers to tank active mitigation abilities while leaving their passive mitigation alone for the most part. But this approach has a side effect that a tank's active mitigation buttons don't feel like they're doing anything in PvP.
The 25% increased damage from players is our first attempt at decreasing tank passive mitigation in PvP. Consequently, we will be relaxing or removing many of the spell multipliers we've made to tank mitigation abilities. That is a change we'll be making alongside the class team's upcoming tuning changes.
We're often asked, "what is your vision for tanks in PvP?" First, if you enjoy playing a tank, we want you to feel like you can provide value to your team in some way. But, we don't want that value to be "I can never die." A tank should be harder to kill then a DPS, but not by a wide margin. Likewise, a tank should do less damage than a DPS (and preferably far less burst damage) but not damage you can simply ignore. We want a tank to be able to go into an arena with their friends, compete, have fun, and earn rewards. We're much more hesitant to say we want tanks to be viable in arenas at the highest level. However, in rated battlegrounds, we would very much like to see tanks at the highest level, not only as flag carriers or point defenders, but as target callers and frontline disruptors. We think that is a fun place for tanks to live in PvP.
We don't think we've arrived at this vision by any means and it may take some time and iteration before we do. We appreciate your impassioned feedback and hope you'll continue to give PvP a try on your tank. Thanks!
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
CM Interaction
TL;DR: Blizz, please talk to your players more.
I think this is valid and understandable, at least for me. I would like to respond to couple of things here, though - just to share some understanding of my personal goals on the team and the broaden the perspective you may have of what I do on a daily basis.
I think it's important to note that it's not my goal to keep my presence to a minimum, and, in fact, the opposite is my ultimate goal. I would love to see a world where I could muster responses to 50-75% of threads across the entirety of the World of Warcraft forums. I am not one to tread the fire and come back when things are already burnt down and in a state where they can't be repaired - I see myself more as one to run directly into the fire and hose it down from the inside out. I don't mind getting caught up in "controversy" and "drama" here (that's my job, after all), and I don't mind if forum goers hate responses I give or come to hate me even, but I do my best to try to share what I know, when I can, where I can.
Of course that doesn't mean that people will always get the answers they want when they want it - which is the case of a lot of class balancing feedback at the moment. I did listen and read tons of posts and threads after poking my head into a few of the class forums. I didn't get a chance to follow up on any of the feedback, as I'm not personally aware of what changes are being made yet - but I did take the time to read the feedback and discuss it with members of my team and the development team here.
----- Skip this part if you don't want to read about restaurants -----
A bit of an aside/ramble for a bit, but it's interesting to think of game development and the customer-feedback loop as a restaurant. The Community team, as well as other teams like Customer Support, are in a more "front of the house" position. We are bringing you the menu, making sure everything is fine with your meal, and having conversations, both good and bad. It's also our job to move your feedback and concerns back to the kitchen and chefs (the development team and individual designers), and our hope there is that those conversations will ultimately lead to a better meal being served to you guys in the days following, once we are able to adjust to the feedback and find a way to better serve and present your meal.
Game design isn't as simple as many may thing, though. You can't just add another ingredient to the dish without changing the entire dishes composition, and, sometimes, changing entirely what the dish is.
While it is my goal to always come by your table and let you know some updates on your food, some changes do take a while to cook in the kitchen before they are delivered to the front of the house, and the bell rings for the dish to be taken to the table. We could always do things faster, and rush to implement more and more fixes and tuning, but sometimes we do need to slow down, observe, listen, respond, listen some more, and figure out exactly what needs to be done to improve the quality of our meals.
That's where we are at right now. We are on the cusp of improving our meals, we've put out a lot of new choices onto the menu, and we about to push a new order out onto the window, but we are making sure it's delicious before we do.
I'll stop talking about restaurants now, because it's making me hungry and I haven't really had a chance to eat today, but I hope visualizing this helps someone on these forums understand our roles here, and why it takes a bit longer than the customer may want to get something they want to eat.
----- Okay I'm done rambling now -----
Like OP said, in a sense there's nothing to be done about these things - sometimes you just have to wait. We will be here when we get more information on upcoming changes, you guys will know as soon as we do about what is being implemented.
Aside from this, and using Lore's case as an example, we do like to drop in and have fun here. It's nice to be able to chat about things that aren't along the lines of "balancing Destruction Warlocks who want to fly in the Broken Isles with 3 legendaries during Vanilla". I understand that these are huge topics, and there are a lot of players who feel strongly about them, but a personal conversation that doesn't touch these topics does not detract from them at all. I understand the frustration that comes when topics about "coffee and tea" gets a response over one about "the state of retribution paladins", but, again, we do need to give our brains a break sometimes. ((As a note, it comes much, much easier to respond to threads about coffee and tea than it does to sit down and write out a long post like this, if that's not obvious))
While this may be seen as a more "junior" responsibility, like you said, it is one of the more important roles in developing our community. Someone has to be down in the trenches, and someone has to wade into the bullet storm that can come from there. When I get home from the office, the first thing I do is open the forums. I try not to respond much after hours to avoid the wrath of my manager/HR, but even then I am still reading threads, following along, day-in and day-out.
Now, I get what you're saying here is that you'd like me to come by and check in on you more often - and I can do that. But it is a double-edged sword. I know many of you would love for us to drop in and say "Hey, thanks for the feedback, we're listening!" over and over again. You may have seen my dropping on occasionally with those kind of responses already, but there is a method to the madness here and a reason every feedback thread doesn't get a response. Since I can't control the time it takes to get changes implemented, I do worry, though, that many of you will tire of a constant "thanks, we're listening" and we will end up in a place worse than when we started.
I'll see what I can do with doing that bit more for now though, and I'll definitely be around a lot more going forward. I've only been handling this forum thing solely for a bit over a month now, so I'm still getting my feet wet and growing a bit into my own here. I hope you guys can come to learn to help me in the same way that I hope I can help you.
It's going to be a crazy ride around here, but, as always, I'm happy to be on board.
-----
TL;DR: Development is hard and takes time. Communication is hard and takes tact, a thick skin, and lots of alcohol. I am always here, and always listening. I'm looking forward to learning and growing more as I engage with you guys. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Continue reading...
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
Achievements
- Broken Isles Pathfinder Rank 1 now properly displays the amount of the mounted speed increase.
Classes
Developers’ Notes: As we discussed last week, we’ve been gathering a massive amount of data based on how each spec has been performing in this first week of raids and Mythic Keystone dungeons, so that we can make a number of tuning changes with next week’s realm maintenance. The overall goal of these changes is to buff up some underperforming specs while also reining in a couple of over-performers, without dramatically changing anyone’s playstyle or causing them to feel as though the spec they chose to focus on became the “wrong choice.”
All of these class changes will be applied during the next scheduled weekly maintenance period in each region. Note that there are also a number of PvP-specific changes, which are noted separately below.
- Frost
- Remorseless Winter damage increased by 50%.
- Obliterate damage increased by 19%.
- Frost Strike damage increased by 12%.
- Howling Blast damage increased by 10%.
- Frostscythe (Talent) damage increased by 13%.
- Frozen Pulse (Talent) damage increased by 11%.
- Breath of Sindragosa (Talent) damage increased by 17%.
- Remorseless Winter damage increased by 50%.
- Havoc
- Throw Glaive damage reduced by 30%.
- Fel Mastery (Talent) damage bonus to Fel Rush reduced to 30%.
- Bloodlet (Talent) now deals 100% of initial Throw Glaive damage.
- Fury of the Illidari (Artifact Ability) damage reduced by 20%.
- Note: See below for for additional PvP tuning adjustments to Fury of the Illidari.
- Balanced Blades (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Blade Dance reduced to 3% per target.
- Throw Glaive damage reduced by 30%.
- Vengeance
- Mastery now provides 50% less damage reduction per point.
- Demon Spikes damage reduction increased to 20%.
- Note: Gearing heavily for Mastery was allowing Vengeance Demon Hunters to reach excessively high levels of Physical damage reduction. We’re reducing the top-end potential of this effect somewhat, and bringing up the baseline. This should also cause the value of Mastery to be more in line with other stats.
- Mastery now provides 50% less damage reduction per point.
- Moonfire (non-Feral) damage increased by 10%.
- Balance
- Sunfire damage increased by 10%.
- Starfall damage increased by 10%.
- Lunar Strike damage increased by 5%.
- Solar Wrath damage increased by 5%.
- Sunfire damage increased by 10%.
- Arcane
- Mastery effects increased by 20%.
- Arcane Missiles damage increased by 9%.
- Arcane Blast damage increased by 10%.
- Mastery effects increased by 20%.
- Frost
- Frostbolt damage increased by 8%.
- Ice Lance damage increased by 13%.
- Flurry damage increased by 38%.
- Blizzard damage increased by 36%, and mana cost reduced by 50%.
- Splitting Ice (Talent) now causes 80% of normal damage (up from 50%).
- Ice Nova (Talent) damage increased by 13%.
- Ray of Frost (Talent) damage increased by 28%.
- Glacial Spike (Talent) damage increased by 15%.
- Frostbolt damage increased by 8%.
- Barrage (non-Survival) damage reduced by 20%.
- Beast Mastery
- Bestial Wrath damage bonus increased to 25%.
- Survival
- Flanking Strike damage increased by 62%.
- Mistweaver
- Spinning Crane Kick (Mistweaver) damage reduced by 25%.
- Retribution
- Templar’s Verdict damage increased by 10%.
- Divine Storm damage increased by 20%.
- Crusader Strike (Retribution) damage increased by 13%.
- Blade of Justice damage increased by 13%.
- Judgment (Retribution) damage increased by 13%.
- Zeal (Talent) damage increased by 13%.
- Blade of Wrath (Talent) damage increased by 13%.
- Templar’s Verdict damage increased by 10%.
- Holy
- Holy Nova damage reduced by 16%.
- Shadow
- Mind Sear damage and Insanity generation increased by 50%.
- Voidform stacks no longer increase while Dispersion and Void Torrent are active.
- Note: These abilities prevent Insanity drain from increasing while active, which effectively reduces the Insanity drain for the entire remainder the current Voidform. This was proving to be too powerful, so we’re now making sure that the damage bonus and Insanity drain from Voidform remain in sync.
- The benefit of Mass Hysteria (Artifact Trait) is now capped at 100%.
- Note: We want it to be rewarding when you’re able to maintain Surrender to Madness for an extremely long time, but the amount of damage this trait was contributing in those circumstances was excessive.
- Mind Sear damage and Insanity generation increased by 50%.
- Death From Above (Talent) area damage increased by 100%.
- Assassination
- Deadly Poison damage increased by 30%.
- Fan of Knives damage increased by 30%.
- Bag of Tricks (Artifact Trait) duration reduced to 3 seconds (overall damage unchanged), radius increased to 6 yards (from 3), and now benefits from Mastery.
- Poison Knives (Artifact Trait) no longer benefits twitch from Mastery. Damage per point increased to 4%.
- Deadly Poison damage increased by 30%.
- Outlaw
- Fatebringer (Artifact Trait) Energy cost reduction reduced to 3 per rank.
- Fate’s Thirst (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Run Through reduced to 6% per rank.
- Black Powder (Artifact Trait) damage bonus to Between the Eyes reduced to 6% per rank.
- Fatebringer (Artifact Trait) Energy cost reduction reduced to 3 per rank.
- Subtlelty
- Eviscerate damage increased by 15%.
- Nightblade damage increased by 15%.
- Note: See below for additional PvP tuning adjustments to Eviscerate and Nightblade.
- Shuriken Storm damage increased by 30%.
- Second Shuriken (Artifact Trait) chance to activate increased to 30% (was 10%), damage increased by 30%, and now deals 200% additional damage while Stealth or Shadow Dance is active.
- Eviscerate damage increased by 15%.
- Elemental
- Mastery effects increased by 12.5%.
- Chain Lightning Maelstrom generation increased to 6.
- Lightning Bolt (Elemental) damage increased by 23%.
- Chain Lightning (Elemental) damage increased by 23%.
- Lava Burst damage increased by 5%.
- Storm Elemental (Talent)’s Call Lightning and Wind Gust damage increased by 20%.
- Mastery effects increased by 12.5%.
- Enhancement
- Fixed a bug that gave offhand special attacks a 100% chance to activate Windfury while Doom Winds was active.
- Windfury activation chance increased to 20%.
- Note: We’re fixing a bug that added multiple extra Windfury procs to each activation of Doom Winds, but adding some Windfury procs back by increasing the baseline activation chance. This should also improve Maelstrom generation outside of Doom Winds.
- Fixed a bug that gave offhand special attacks a 100% chance to activate Windfury while Doom Winds was active.
- Restoration
- Chain Lightning (Restoration) damage increased by 23%.
- Affliction
- Drain Life damage increased by 10%
- Drain Soul damage increased by 10%
- Corruption damage increased by 10%
- Agony damage increased by 5%
- Unstable Affliction damage increased by 15%
- Seed of Corruption damage increased by 15%
- Siphon Life (Talent) damage increased by 10%
- Haunt (Talent) damage increased by 15%
- Phantom Singularity (Talent) damage increased by 15%
- Drain Life damage increased by 10%
- Demonology
- Hand of Gul’dan impact damage increased by 20%
- Demonwrath damage increased by 15%
- Shadowbolt damage increased by 10%
- Doom damage increased by 10%
- Wild Imps damage increased by 10%
- Dreadstalker attack power increased by 10%
- Felguard attack power increased by 10%
- Doomguard (Demonology)’s Doom Bolt damage increased by 18%
- Demonbolt (Talent) damage increased by 10%
- Implosion (Talent) damage increased by 15%
- Shadowflame (Talent) damage increased by 10%
- Darkglare (Talent) damage increased by 10%
- Hand of Gul’dan impact damage increased by 20%
- Destruction
- Chaos Bolt damage increased by 11%
- Incinerate damage increased by 11%
- Immolate damage increased by 11%
- Conflagrate damage increased by 11%
- Rain of Fire damage increased by 11%, and cast time removed
- Cataclysm (Talent) damage increased by 11%
- Channel Demonfire (Talent) damage increased by 11%
- Chaos Bolt damage increased by 11%
- Arms
- Exploit the Weakness (Artifact Trait) bonus reduced to 3% per point.
- Focused Rage (Talent) damage bonus reduced to 30%.
- Exploit the Weakness (Artifact Trait) bonus reduced to 3% per point.
- Protection
- Vengeance (Talent) Rage cost reduction reduced to 35%.
- Intercept Rage generation reduced to 10.
- Shield Slam Rage generation reduced to 10.
- Vengeance (Talent) Rage cost reduction reduced to 35%.
PvP
Developers’ Notes: While many of the above changes are beneficial for PvP, some specs need additional tuning for PvP situations. Some of the PvP- specific changes we’re making are intended to counteract the above, while others are simply intended to help overall PvP balance.
- Battlegrounds
- Tank-specialized characters no longer take additional damage while carrying a flag.
- Death Knight (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Blood
- Consumption (Artifact Ability)’s healing is no longer reduced in PvP.
- Death Strike now factors in 50% of recent damage taken from players when determining it’s healing amount (previously, it ignored damage taken from players).
- Consumption (Artifact Ability)’s healing is no longer reduced in PvP.
- Blood
- Demon Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Havoc
- Fury of the Illidari (Artifact Ability) damage is now reduced by 10% in PvP (up from a 30% reduction).
- Vengeance
- Soul Cleave’s heal is no longer reduced in PvP.
- Havoc
- Druid (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Restoration
- Livebloom’s bloom effect increased by 50% in PvP.
- Critical Strike stat reduced by 50%.
- Haste stat increased by 50%.
- Livebloom’s bloom effect increased by 50% in PvP.
- Guardian
- Frenzied Regeneration now factors in 50% of recent damage taken from players when determining it’s healing amount (previously, it ignored damage taken from players).
- Restoration
- Hunter (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Survival
- Mongoose Fury now increases the damage of Mongoose Bite by 35% per stack in PvP (up from 25% per stack).
- Beast Mastery
- Agility stat reduced by 10%.
- Survival
- Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Frost
- Frostbolt now reduces movement speed by 50%.
- Frostbolt damage is now increased by 10% in PvP (down from 20%).
- Frostbolt now reduces movement speed by 50%.
- Fire
- World in Flames (Honor Talent)’s reduction to Flamestrike’s cast time reduced to 2 seconds.
- Frost
- Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Mistweaver
- Counteract Magic (Honor Talent) bonus to Renewing Mist reduced to 150%.
- Windwalker
- Strike of the Windlord (Artifact Ability) damage is now reduced by 30% in PvP (up from 50%).
- Agility stat increased by 12%.
- Strike of the Windlord (Artifact Ability) damage is now reduced by 30% in PvP (up from 50%).
- Mistweaver
- Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Retribution
- Strength stat reduced by 5%.
- Protection
- Light of the Protector and Hand of the Protector healing is now reduced by 15% in PvP (up from 50%).
- Retribution
- Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Discipline
- Atonement healing is now increased by 15% in PvP (down from 25%).
- Holy
- Apotheosis can no longer be dispelled.
- Discipline
- Rogue (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Outlaw
- Control is King (Honor Talent) duration reduced to 3 seconds.
- Between the Eyes’ damage bonus on Critical Strikes reduced to 100% in PvP (down from 200%).
- Control is King (Honor Talent) duration reduced to 3 seconds.
- Subtlety
- Eviscerate now deals 15% less damage in PvP.
- Nightblade now deals 15% less damage in PvP.
- Eviscerate now deals 15% less damage in PvP.
- Outlaw
- Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
- Arms
- Echo Slam (Honor Talent) damage reduced to 5% of the target’s total health.
- Fury
- Bloodthirst’s heal is no longer reduced in PvP.
- Protection
- Ignore Pain’s maximum absorb amount is no longer reduced in PvP. (Note: the effect of each Ignore Pain is still reduced by 20% in PvP)
- Arms
- Honor System
- The Honor system reward Glory of the Melee now rewards 500 Artifact Power (was 150).
- World PvP
- Warden Tower World Quests now grant 150 honor (was 300).
- Warden Tower World Quests now appear three times per day, and each quest is available for 24 hours.
- Warden Tower World Quests now grant 150 honor (was 300).
Class Halls
- Druids with the Evergreen perk should no longer have their planted soils reset after entering an Arena match.
- The Soul Reapers tooltip for the Shadow Heresy talent is no longer incorrect.
Dungeons and Raids
- Emerald Nightmare
- Fixed a bug where players would fall to their death when jumping into the Rift of Aln while mounted.
- Warlocks will now be able to target their Soul Effigies when fighting Il'gynoth inside the heart chamber.
- Ursoc no longer causes players to stand up (and interrupt their eating/drinking) when he respawns.
- Fixed a bug where players would fall to their death when jumping into the Rift of Aln while mounted.
- The Arcway
- Enemy Forces will remain in The Arcway after players have defeated Advisor Vandros.
- Tome of Hex: Spider should now only drop for Shaman when defeating Nal'tira.
- Enemy Forces will remain in The Arcway after players have defeated Advisor Vandros.
- Maw of Souls
- Players should no longer become stuck inside the cages they’re placed in after defeating Ymiron.
Items
- Damage from Potion of the Old War and Potion of Deadly Grace reduced by 33%.
- Developers’ Notes: Previously, we significantly buffed the damage of these potions, but then discovered some bugs that were significantly reducing their effective damage. Now that those bugs have been fixed, their damage contribution is much too high. They should still feel very rewarding to use, but we’re bringing them back down to Earth a little.
- Fixed a bug that was causing Balance Druids to sometimes engage enemies from unintended great distances with damaging trinket procs.
- The Grove Darkener's Treads should now switch from Intellect to Agility based on your spec.
Professions
- It should now be possible to reach skill 800 in Blacksmithing.
- Cooking
- Rank 1 of Hearty Feast should now reward one feast instead of five. Subsequent ranks reward a cost reduction, rather than additional food.
- Demon Hunters should now get appropriate stats from feasts and other similar sources of buffs.
- Rank 1 of Hearty Feast should now reward one feast instead of five. Subsequent ranks reward a cost reduction, rather than additional food.
Quests
- In the Withered Army Training scenario, it should be less likely for Leystalker Dro to be hiding somewhere that he wouldn't normally be encountered by clearing the room.
- A new Archaeology Quests aura is now displayed while you’re on an Archaeology quest in your current zone.
- Developers’ Notes: This is to make sure you’re aware of how many days you have left to complete a large Archaeology project before it expires. We’re investigating ways to provide this in the quest tracker and quest log.
- Aodh Witherpetal will no longer become stuck during “DANGER: Aodh Witherpetal”.
Tanks PvP Balance
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker
/ Official Forums
)
We lost 10% total dmg, had our PvP templates dmg lowered on top of that and now we also take 25% more dmg.
All three of these changes effect INSTANCED PvP where there was no possible way you could say with the lowered PvP template PLUS we do 15% less dmg to players already before these changes that this seems fair at all.
Thanks for the post about this. We understand your concern. Tanks in PvP are a real design and balance challenge for us and it may take time for us to get it just right. Unlike other PvP games (Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm for example), tanks in World of Warcraft are not tuned or designed around tanking other players. World of Warcraft tanks are primarily designed to withstand the onslaught of raid bosses, which do considerably more damage than players. While tanks have a lot of active mitigation buttons, they also have a lot of passive mitigation and survivability. During beta, we applied a lot of spell multipliers to tank active mitigation abilities while leaving their passive mitigation alone for the most part. But this approach has a side effect that a tank's active mitigation buttons don't feel like they're doing anything in PvP.
The 25% increased damage from players is our first attempt at decreasing tank passive mitigation in PvP. Consequently, we will be relaxing or removing many of the spell multipliers we've made to tank mitigation abilities. That is a change we'll be making alongside the class team's upcoming tuning changes.
We're often asked, "what is your vision for tanks in PvP?" First, if you enjoy playing a tank, we want you to feel like you can provide value to your team in some way. But, we don't want that value to be "I can never die." A tank should be harder to kill then a DPS, but not by a wide margin. Likewise, a tank should do less damage than a DPS (and preferably far less burst damage) but not damage you can simply ignore. We want a tank to be able to go into an arena with their friends, compete, have fun, and earn rewards. We're much more hesitant to say we want tanks to be viable in arenas at the highest level. However, in rated battlegrounds, we would very much like to see tanks at the highest level, not only as flag carriers or point defenders, but as target callers and frontline disruptors. We think that is a fun place for tanks to live in PvP.
We don't think we've arrived at this vision by any means and it may take some time and iteration before we do. We appreciate your impassioned feedback and hope you'll continue to give PvP a try on your tank. Thanks!
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
CM Interaction
TL;DR: Blizz, please talk to your players more.
I think this is valid and understandable, at least for me. I would like to respond to couple of things here, though - just to share some understanding of my personal goals on the team and the broaden the perspective you may have of what I do on a daily basis.
I think it's important to note that it's not my goal to keep my presence to a minimum, and, in fact, the opposite is my ultimate goal. I would love to see a world where I could muster responses to 50-75% of threads across the entirety of the World of Warcraft forums. I am not one to tread the fire and come back when things are already burnt down and in a state where they can't be repaired - I see myself more as one to run directly into the fire and hose it down from the inside out. I don't mind getting caught up in "controversy" and "drama" here (that's my job, after all), and I don't mind if forum goers hate responses I give or come to hate me even, but I do my best to try to share what I know, when I can, where I can.
Of course that doesn't mean that people will always get the answers they want when they want it - which is the case of a lot of class balancing feedback at the moment. I did listen and read tons of posts and threads after poking my head into a few of the class forums. I didn't get a chance to follow up on any of the feedback, as I'm not personally aware of what changes are being made yet - but I did take the time to read the feedback and discuss it with members of my team and the development team here.
----- Skip this part if you don't want to read about restaurants -----
A bit of an aside/ramble for a bit, but it's interesting to think of game development and the customer-feedback loop as a restaurant. The Community team, as well as other teams like Customer Support, are in a more "front of the house" position. We are bringing you the menu, making sure everything is fine with your meal, and having conversations, both good and bad. It's also our job to move your feedback and concerns back to the kitchen and chefs (the development team and individual designers), and our hope there is that those conversations will ultimately lead to a better meal being served to you guys in the days following, once we are able to adjust to the feedback and find a way to better serve and present your meal.
Game design isn't as simple as many may thing, though. You can't just add another ingredient to the dish without changing the entire dishes composition, and, sometimes, changing entirely what the dish is.
While it is my goal to always come by your table and let you know some updates on your food, some changes do take a while to cook in the kitchen before they are delivered to the front of the house, and the bell rings for the dish to be taken to the table. We could always do things faster, and rush to implement more and more fixes and tuning, but sometimes we do need to slow down, observe, listen, respond, listen some more, and figure out exactly what needs to be done to improve the quality of our meals.
That's where we are at right now. We are on the cusp of improving our meals, we've put out a lot of new choices onto the menu, and we about to push a new order out onto the window, but we are making sure it's delicious before we do.
I'll stop talking about restaurants now, because it's making me hungry and I haven't really had a chance to eat today, but I hope visualizing this helps someone on these forums understand our roles here, and why it takes a bit longer than the customer may want to get something they want to eat.
----- Okay I'm done rambling now -----
Like OP said, in a sense there's nothing to be done about these things - sometimes you just have to wait. We will be here when we get more information on upcoming changes, you guys will know as soon as we do about what is being implemented.
Aside from this, and using Lore's case as an example, we do like to drop in and have fun here. It's nice to be able to chat about things that aren't along the lines of "balancing Destruction Warlocks who want to fly in the Broken Isles with 3 legendaries during Vanilla". I understand that these are huge topics, and there are a lot of players who feel strongly about them, but a personal conversation that doesn't touch these topics does not detract from them at all. I understand the frustration that comes when topics about "coffee and tea" gets a response over one about "the state of retribution paladins", but, again, we do need to give our brains a break sometimes. ((As a note, it comes much, much easier to respond to threads about coffee and tea than it does to sit down and write out a long post like this, if that's not obvious))
While this may be seen as a more "junior" responsibility, like you said, it is one of the more important roles in developing our community. Someone has to be down in the trenches, and someone has to wade into the bullet storm that can come from there. When I get home from the office, the first thing I do is open the forums. I try not to respond much after hours to avoid the wrath of my manager/HR, but even then I am still reading threads, following along, day-in and day-out.
Now, I get what you're saying here is that you'd like me to come by and check in on you more often - and I can do that. But it is a double-edged sword. I know many of you would love for us to drop in and say "Hey, thanks for the feedback, we're listening!" over and over again. You may have seen my dropping on occasionally with those kind of responses already, but there is a method to the madness here and a reason every feedback thread doesn't get a response. Since I can't control the time it takes to get changes implemented, I do worry, though, that many of you will tire of a constant "thanks, we're listening" and we will end up in a place worse than when we started.
I'll see what I can do with doing that bit more for now though, and I'll definitely be around a lot more going forward. I've only been handling this forum thing solely for a bit over a month now, so I'm still getting my feet wet and growing a bit into my own here. I hope you guys can come to learn to help me in the same way that I hope I can help you.
It's going to be a crazy ride around here, but, as always, I'm happy to be on board.
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TL;DR: Development is hard and takes time. Communication is hard and takes tact, a thick skin, and lots of alcohol. I am always here, and always listening. I'm looking forward to learning and growing more as I engage with you guys. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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