EU+US PTR 7.1 Impressions for 20's

Sounds like some exciting stuff to me.
* Rogues and Surv will be too strong, but balanceing is never perfect.
* Disc will be brought back in line with other healers with three big nerfs, but not necessarily below other healers. Atonement is a powerful ability if the Disc plays more as a dps class with passive atonement heals, kind of like affliction lock, except he can have his dmg heal targets other than himself. And still has flash-heal spam. Unlike most healers you can still generate some heals while kicked via atonement+SWP and Schism.
* Aflic lock, which looked so promising in 7.0 but fell short may make the grade now. Their #1 issue in arenas was the mana cost of drain life, which is both their primary dmg and healing spell rolled into one. LifeTap should solve that mana issue. Haunt is already a huge dmg burst and it sounds like it will be even bigger. (Is Agony getting a buff too?.) Also making hunt an even bigger burst increases the likelihood of resetting it's cooldown(happens if the target dies).
* Balance Druid gets a comparable heal to other hybrids, 2x as much dot dmg(they already top bg dmg just by spreading moonfire).
Also balance mobility with huge dots should serve as a soft-counter to both rogues and survival hunters, both of which can be kited, in addition to warriors, dps monks. It sounds like balance could be a viable 1v1 match for the likes of ret pallies.
* Feral losing the stun is a blow, and reduces the usefulness of them having heal, but the heal will still change their play-style in an interesting way, and I feel that, in the spirit of the game, all druids, like shaman, should have some hybrid-level healing ability. It moves feral from the overpopulated pure melee camp with war/rogue/surv hunt/death knight/demon hunter, to the hybrid melee camp with ww monks and ret palies. In arena where stuns are countered with trinkets and off-heals, and re-stealthing is inhibited by dots, replacing the stun with a self-heal may be an overall buff to ferals, especially since they are most efficient when they spread dots rather than trying to run away to re-stealth. Their play-style will change from 'in-and-out' to 'stay-in.'
* Rdruid IF they make regrowth closer to other healers' spam heal, or lifebloom is strong enough to make up the difference, then they will be in a good place with 2 huge dots and mobility instead of cc. You can expect to see Rdruid with top dmg in bgs, alongside balance, and huge instant-cast spread-pressure in arenas too. The mobility should make them hard to focus/burst by the top melee burst classes.

But when is this patch going live? Maybe many months away.
 
Sounds like some exciting stuff to me.

What's exciting about seeing 85% being some flavor of hunter, rogue, pally, and druid again for the next 'X' months? If you take out FotM Disc, that's about all we see now.

There's a big difference between "balance is never perfect" and OP.
 
7.1 PTR Impressions

Hunters
Surv Hunters- Harpoon, Freezing Trap
  • Loses Aspect of the Cheetah.
  • (Talent) Animal Instincts now reduces CD of abilities.
BM Hunters- Multi-Shot, Wild Call
  • Loses Aspect of the Cheetah.
  • Loses Aspect of the Wild.
MM Hunters- Multi-Shot
  • Loses Aspect of the Cheetah.
Overall Impression for Hunters: Really good, especially Harpoon and Freezing Trap. Freezing Trap will now make it easier to tame pets.
I've been thinking about the upcoming changes for Hunters recently and I'm not all that keen to see these changes implemented to be honest. MM & BM losing http://www.wowhead.com/spell=186257/aspect-of-the-cheetah is a big blow. Though it's on a slow CD, it was very handy when trying to kite a decent player, you pop Disengage then Cheetah and your away, but without it, it will limit our ability to kite effectively. I know Disengage is quite often sufficient, but good players will still stick to you and that's where the extra speed helped out. Is it a sin to speedpot kite?

Also, as I mainly play BM, http://www.wowhead.com/spell=193530/aspect-of-the-wild is the only real form of burst we have. It is handy when trying to burn down a heals, but without it we will just have steady dps which is painful given we don't have an interrupt. Not sure that http://www.wowhead.com/spell=185789/wild-call will be as effective as it's RNG based rather than on-demand pop and burst. Hopefully it allows http://www.wowhead.com/spell=120679/dire-beast to be reset relatively frequently so we can keep the focus up and in turn better dps.

Thinking about Surv on the other hand, with the gain of http://www.wowhead.com/spell=187650/freezing-trap, that can act as an escape mechanism or, if quick enough could be placed at a healer feet that's trying to self heal and act as an interrupt so to speak. On top of that add in http://www.wowhead.com/spell=190925/harpoon....... man it's sickening to see what's going to happen to the already strongest spec. I understand Blizz is tuning for top end, but these changes down the bottom end just make me want to......... arrrghhhh, don't know I just don't like it........

Sorry for the gripe, just been thinking about some recent bg's I've been in and how it would be without some abilities and it's just gonna suck! :eek: Well, at least for non-Surv Hunters.​
 
IMO ranged hunters have had it too easy for too long. They needed some nerfs, but Surv currently is asinine and buffing it is just fcking stupid. Meet the new BM monk/feral.

I'm sure all the long-time "skilled" players wouldn't think of going Surv (or currently Disc)...because they actually want to use their skills. :rolleyes:
 
Items can easily be restored.
not if you are pure f2p.
No restoration anymore.
even back when you could do it, it would send you sold items as cod and with 10g cap it would only be up to kind gm to get it back. happy it is no longer the case.
 
Leaving me once again torn between playing my rogue and healing! I always feel as if when I queue on my rogue that my faction is doomed to not have enough healers
Play a hybrid!
 
Well, on a good note, Mistweaver's look like they'll be useful again. They get http://www.wowhead.com/spell=115151/renewing-mist plus http://www.wowhead.com/spell=117952/crackling-jade-lightning. I've found so far that Legion really hurt Mistweaver's (at least at 20). I know 29's can be tough healers, but 20's have been lacking. The WoD 20 Mistweaver was actually more effective. But it seems with the introduction of a ranged DPS ability and instant cast HoT it may just get another look at :)

Now, if only I was this excited for my BM Hunter.........
 
Hey, getting a stupid gimmick like Far Sight (because idiots can't open their maps or simply look across the field in AB and EotS and mouse hover) is what all 3 shaman specs needed to homogenize them, while removing actually useful things like Cleanse, T-storm, and Frostbrand.

If they wanted people to play their new specs like Surv & Outlaw, they'd make them decent and fun to play not have to bribe you with OP.

Same moronic shit, diff xpac/patch at Blizzorx.
 
My thoughts (for 3v3):

Surv will be insane. Mages/Warlocks remain amazing. Rogues can actually be considered a legit pick now. Shadow Priests are gonna be pretty decent with the 10% phys dmg reduction. Holy Priest is gonna be on par with holy paladin, you can pick one or the other depending on what you're facing.

OP comps:
Thugcleave, MLP, RMP, Surv/Destro/Disc probably.
 
Damage on all feral abilities have been increased too. It's true that tiger's fury now gives 20 energy (before 60), but maybe, with that, the medium damage of feral is better now, and do not deppend so much on the tiger's fury.

Oh, and SHRED won't do neither 50% more damage from stealth, and neither more damage if the victim is bleeding out. (anyway the shred damage have been increased, as the other abilites)

It's true that the stun did a lot, but I think that maybe ferals wont be dead. The stun was very important on night elves (from 2 stuns to 0 stuns), but I think tauren druids still have a chance.

¿What do u think about that and the new bigger stats of the feral abilities?
 
I'd take a heal in feral over a rake stun. It will be similar to MoP feral
and resto sham isn't crap. It feels stronger with the changes I feel.
 
Feral definitely got buffed in nearly every situation.

It gets a bit weaker in 2v2 matchups where it's with a CC caster, but even then - it's hard to go from no healing to having healing and say it's a nerf.

The loss of rake stun is pretty marginal, since in a BG everyone on the enemy team will (on average) have their trinket available. In Arenas, you likely won't get many re-stealths. The loss of a forced trinket in 2v2 is bad, but again, the heals more than make up for it.

The majority of the time in arenas, at least, the passive move speed was wasted, since cat form is enough for offensive mobility and stag form is enough for defensive mobility. Dash helps Ferals dominate in both other categories.

Druids are definitely going to be much stronger now.

P.S., I also think that Rsham is now a god tier healer. It's on equal footing with Discipline, at least. If you run the sustained and burst healing numbers for Rsham, it outperforms Disc in Sustain, and is 2nd highest in burst (highest being Penitent Disc, which shouldn't be a thing anyway since Schism is so overtuned). Flame Shock is also a crazy strong DoT, and Rsham has the best PuG BG healing now with Healing Stream Totem and Chain Heal, not to mention the ability to kite melee DPS (Outlaw, Survival overlords) with Earthbind Totem/Ghost Wolf and a 30 (!!!) yard range interrupt to disrupt enemy healers on a very short cooldown.
 

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