LVL 20 winners and losers…
- Thread starter Henjitsu
- Start date
Biggest loser- rogue easily. Not just the class/spec changes but the overall game changes also hurt rogues the most. Honestly its tought between fury warrior and warlock for biggest winner, my furry warrior doesnt even care about the changes and still zug zugs through dungeons. My warlock is getting 4.5k haunt crits and 2k shadowbolt crits ( 2.5k with nightfall proc) And has an unkillable pet now lol.
So far for me its been cloth-wearers as a win for now, apparently more changes coming in next patch that may "fix" stuff but apparently nerf the Unholy Death Knight as one example but not really address the core issues with some of the new direction with leveling classes being poorer than their pre-release state.
There are apparently there are changes towards a plus like supposed with some of the proposed Rogue changes in 12.0.1 but that's in March?!
It seems the Rogue getting basically the same movement options in their various trees is weird as they have no hit power and the poisons seems weak.
Shaman Elemental seems off, Demon Hunter is mixed bag, Evoker seems unchanged.
Warlock, Shadow/Discipline Priest/Fire Mage seems better than Mail or Plate classes at a <= level 20.
Basically seems the pre-release was meant for higher levels, and forgetting about leveling characters IMO.
There are apparently there are changes towards a plus like supposed with some of the proposed Rogue changes in 12.0.1 but that's in March?!
It seems the Rogue getting basically the same movement options in their various trees is weird as they have no hit power and the poisons seems weak.
Shaman Elemental seems off, Demon Hunter is mixed bag, Evoker seems unchanged.
Warlock, Shadow/Discipline Priest/Fire Mage seems better than Mail or Plate classes at a <= level 20.
Basically seems the pre-release was meant for higher levels, and forgetting about leveling characters IMO.
Well considering the ammount of talents that require a higher lvl then you can pick the actual talent at I would agree with you on this lol.
Touren
Member
I only started twinking early TWW, with only 2 toons over the course of this expansion.
I love playing hybrid classes, to dabble in off-roles as strong support if necessary if things go sideways in grouped content and this is traced directly to my main & only toon from Vanilla to Legion being a Druid, and twinking scratches this itch a lot in a way that it can't in current retail due to how gimped these off-roles now are at max level.
Firstly an Evoker:
Am pleased that there are no real changes to Devastation, it is as strong as ever & should continue to be suited to farm & dungeon content due to its extremely high (perhaps highest) upfront burst power, snap single & aoe switching capability, and multi-cc options. It also continues to be a strong off-healer, with very useful instant single & aoe heal options, and weirdly enough extremely powerful in this era of high health bars. Outside of druids, other off-healers' per spell healing are nowhere as potent, but I understand other classes' off-heals are significantly buffed in current beta.
For Preservation it's mostly the same as before, with my go-to emergency AOE heal Spiritbloom gone & keenly felt, but we now have access to Rewind & Essence Burst, the latter which could be used to boost our not-insignificant dps even further than before. Have to be more careful with Dream Breath aiming since Spiritbloom as a back-up crutch is gone, but Dream Breath AOE range has been increased to compensate. Overall a small sideways move for Preservation.
Have not tried Augmentation this patch, so no comments yet.
Second twink is a Druid:
As Resto, it plays almost the the same as before. We lose Cenarion Ward whilst not gaining anything new. Swiftmend can now be talented into 2 charges in lieu of Nature's Swiftness that's only a single charge now. Dps-wise in this spec is also about the same, but since we now have to talent Swipe, we have to give up the small magical damage & heal bonus talent, which in practice isn't felt that much as Resto dps has been drip-nerfed over the course of whole TWW, but still does respectable damage overall and almost similar to many other pure dps classes.
Feral also feels the same, with access to the same talents & key abilties. The most fun part of Feral over TWW has been how devastating its sustained AOE is on continuously mobile fights. Feral Thrash being gone now means initial phases of AOE feels weak until u get Primal Wrath up, but it seems Swipe damage will be buffed quite a bit in a future patch.
However, its off-heals which were pretty weak before, are now massively buffed, over and beyond other classes to DPS Evoker levels, such that I'm considering taking the Wild Growth talent in addition to the Rejuv I always have had. The crazy thing is these 2 heals are buffed even further in current beta.
For Bears, I haven't field tested it yet, but just looking at the abilities there doesn't seem to be much change. The powerful Brambles is gone, but you can now talent into both Survival Instinct, now 2-charges by default, & Berserk at same time (you could before but if I remember you have to give up other significant talents to do so). Personally, I won't feel the loss of Brambles much because previously I didn't know how powerful it was at our level, and so I was running without it for majority of TWW and farming Freehold green drops without that talent lol.
That leaves Boomkin, with the biggest change rotationally due to Eclipse now being an on-demand button. Initially I thought the Boomkin identity will feel very different since the whole Eclipse-trigger mechanics that's been around since BC is now replaced by a boring button like many other dps specs, but in practice it does feel a bit more practical? The new Improved Eclipse talent giving 2-charges of Eclipse, is pretty mandatory though, and because of that I'm giving up Nature's Balance which has been extremely useful to ramp up in dungeon settings.
Oh & just like Feral, Boomkin off-heals are also very strong, and if not for pesky mana issues, Boomkins / Ferals can actually solo sustain the whole team in dungeons. Still, practically it should be better to continue running as a dps in Resto spec.
All in I'm pretty relieved above 2 classes have remained pretty much intact in gameplay.
Solo viability of course is a different issue due to the big health changes, and even lower power due to lower stats from the squish whilst stat-to-percentage conversion remains the same. Haven't explored much outside dungeons, but it doesn't look like we can get the stats / percentages up further if we already have BIS gear from TWW.
As for rest of classes, my first experience with them was only during Lemix, but I can already see pertinent changes to some that majorly affects how the specs feel to play. Perhaps in a later post.
I love playing hybrid classes, to dabble in off-roles as strong support if necessary if things go sideways in grouped content and this is traced directly to my main & only toon from Vanilla to Legion being a Druid, and twinking scratches this itch a lot in a way that it can't in current retail due to how gimped these off-roles now are at max level.
Firstly an Evoker:
Am pleased that there are no real changes to Devastation, it is as strong as ever & should continue to be suited to farm & dungeon content due to its extremely high (perhaps highest) upfront burst power, snap single & aoe switching capability, and multi-cc options. It also continues to be a strong off-healer, with very useful instant single & aoe heal options, and weirdly enough extremely powerful in this era of high health bars. Outside of druids, other off-healers' per spell healing are nowhere as potent, but I understand other classes' off-heals are significantly buffed in current beta.
For Preservation it's mostly the same as before, with my go-to emergency AOE heal Spiritbloom gone & keenly felt, but we now have access to Rewind & Essence Burst, the latter which could be used to boost our not-insignificant dps even further than before. Have to be more careful with Dream Breath aiming since Spiritbloom as a back-up crutch is gone, but Dream Breath AOE range has been increased to compensate. Overall a small sideways move for Preservation.
Have not tried Augmentation this patch, so no comments yet.
Second twink is a Druid:
As Resto, it plays almost the the same as before. We lose Cenarion Ward whilst not gaining anything new. Swiftmend can now be talented into 2 charges in lieu of Nature's Swiftness that's only a single charge now. Dps-wise in this spec is also about the same, but since we now have to talent Swipe, we have to give up the small magical damage & heal bonus talent, which in practice isn't felt that much as Resto dps has been drip-nerfed over the course of whole TWW, but still does respectable damage overall and almost similar to many other pure dps classes.
Feral also feels the same, with access to the same talents & key abilties. The most fun part of Feral over TWW has been how devastating its sustained AOE is on continuously mobile fights. Feral Thrash being gone now means initial phases of AOE feels weak until u get Primal Wrath up, but it seems Swipe damage will be buffed quite a bit in a future patch.
However, its off-heals which were pretty weak before, are now massively buffed, over and beyond other classes to DPS Evoker levels, such that I'm considering taking the Wild Growth talent in addition to the Rejuv I always have had. The crazy thing is these 2 heals are buffed even further in current beta.
For Bears, I haven't field tested it yet, but just looking at the abilities there doesn't seem to be much change. The powerful Brambles is gone, but you can now talent into both Survival Instinct, now 2-charges by default, & Berserk at same time (you could before but if I remember you have to give up other significant talents to do so). Personally, I won't feel the loss of Brambles much because previously I didn't know how powerful it was at our level, and so I was running without it for majority of TWW and farming Freehold green drops without that talent lol.
That leaves Boomkin, with the biggest change rotationally due to Eclipse now being an on-demand button. Initially I thought the Boomkin identity will feel very different since the whole Eclipse-trigger mechanics that's been around since BC is now replaced by a boring button like many other dps specs, but in practice it does feel a bit more practical? The new Improved Eclipse talent giving 2-charges of Eclipse, is pretty mandatory though, and because of that I'm giving up Nature's Balance which has been extremely useful to ramp up in dungeon settings.
Oh & just like Feral, Boomkin off-heals are also very strong, and if not for pesky mana issues, Boomkins / Ferals can actually solo sustain the whole team in dungeons. Still, practically it should be better to continue running as a dps in Resto spec.
All in I'm pretty relieved above 2 classes have remained pretty much intact in gameplay.
Solo viability of course is a different issue due to the big health changes, and even lower power due to lower stats from the squish whilst stat-to-percentage conversion remains the same. Haven't explored much outside dungeons, but it doesn't look like we can get the stats / percentages up further if we already have BIS gear from TWW.
As for rest of classes, my first experience with them was only during Lemix, but I can already see pertinent changes to some that majorly affects how the specs feel to play. Perhaps in a later post.
20 arcane mage did not seem to lose any breaking ability, they were already robbed of arcane missiles (useable on proc only). before the patch my player was logged out at broken shore in LW mode to farm resources for follower mission board. previously i could deal with 4-5 mobs and some of the rares with ease, today all my attacks are insanely weak, arcane torrent virtually worthless, had to go into root and kite mode for 3 mobs, got 2 died on 3rd
prior to patch even with dual LS my rogue could have issues with some of the rares at mechagon, now even weaker, i built a armory for the volatile blaster and i died on a rare, the blaster has been nerfed, yeah i could have vanished and escaped, but that is not the point of this thread. low level rogues were imo rather weak, lacked survival, lost HP fast prior to the prepatches. any further nerfs were a nail in the coffin
20s prot/ret pals, bm hunts, BM Monk, guard druid i can crawl thru the harder fights. pet on hunters are extremely weak and die fast. have to start the pet heal right away
my 10 fury war seems to have faired the best of my 10s g/druid, bm/monks, VDHs
someone told me warlocks pets are virtual elites/unkillable. have not done anything on my 20 locks, SPs, sham, etc
we went thru this after the big BFA squish but so did all the retail levelers, then it was due to the over nerfing of gear, people who pay to play complained blizz did their rescaling, etc. they called smoothing, this time is near the same, again to adjust their hyperinflation of max level players they shit on lower levels that were never hyperinflated.
prior to patch even with dual LS my rogue could have issues with some of the rares at mechagon, now even weaker, i built a armory for the volatile blaster and i died on a rare, the blaster has been nerfed, yeah i could have vanished and escaped, but that is not the point of this thread. low level rogues were imo rather weak, lacked survival, lost HP fast prior to the prepatches. any further nerfs were a nail in the coffin
20s prot/ret pals, bm hunts, BM Monk, guard druid i can crawl thru the harder fights. pet on hunters are extremely weak and die fast. have to start the pet heal right away
my 10 fury war seems to have faired the best of my 10s g/druid, bm/monks, VDHs
someone told me warlocks pets are virtual elites/unkillable. have not done anything on my 20 locks, SPs, sham, etc
we went thru this after the big BFA squish but so did all the retail levelers, then it was due to the over nerfing of gear, people who pay to play complained blizz did their rescaling, etc. they called smoothing, this time is near the same, again to adjust their hyperinflation of max level players they shit on lower levels that were never hyperinflated.
Last edited:
Staffelchef
Member
I made a video on before and after patch regarding stat, equip and clear speed of my main. It is in german but I think you get the idea, when you see the numbers, esp. health and kill speed.
I tested my damage on a dummy before and after: Single target damage is a loss, multi target slightly better, but still not enough to compensate the loss of bleeding from deep wounds. If you like some damage numbers:
Charge -50%, Melee +65%, Devastor +60%, Impending Victory -50%, Deep Wounds gone, Item procs +30%, Thunder Clap +150%, Shield Slam +-0%, Storm Bolt -50%, Revenge +60%, Heroic Throw -50%, Execute -65%
Eventhough you can see some plus, it is not enough to deal with the new hugh HP pool of enemies. Execute going from 1700dmg down to 500-700dmg consums so much rage that I don't have enough to stay alive with shield block and ignor pain. Whirwind is now more cost efficient so that I only use revange in case of a free proc.
I tested my damage on a dummy before and after: Single target damage is a loss, multi target slightly better, but still not enough to compensate the loss of bleeding from deep wounds. If you like some damage numbers:
Charge -50%, Melee +65%, Devastor +60%, Impending Victory -50%, Deep Wounds gone, Item procs +30%, Thunder Clap +150%, Shield Slam +-0%, Storm Bolt -50%, Revenge +60%, Heroic Throw -50%, Execute -65%
Eventhough you can see some plus, it is not enough to deal with the new hugh HP pool of enemies. Execute going from 1700dmg down to 500-700dmg consums so much rage that I don't have enough to stay alive with shield block and ignor pain. Whirwind is now more cost efficient so that I only use revange in case of a free proc.
Last edited:
Arms warrior at 20 feels like an L overall but with some QoL changes regarding sweeping strikes
Overpower no longer strengthens MS so it's just a boring attack
Execute does similar damage to MS but requires 40 rage to hit that number.
The talent tree for arms is all kinds of messed up too
Sudden Death does not reset execute CD so you probably want to pick the talent after that to remove the CD. But I'm doing that you lose out on the second overpower charge. So you are either rage starved or rage capped unless you alternate using whirlwind etc. which is kinda weird to play
Mm hunter at 20 also huge L for putting a skill in the talent tree this early that requires a higher level to unlock (Spotter)
Overpower no longer strengthens MS so it's just a boring attack
Execute does similar damage to MS but requires 40 rage to hit that number.
The talent tree for arms is all kinds of messed up too
Sudden Death does not reset execute CD so you probably want to pick the talent after that to remove the CD. But I'm doing that you lose out on the second overpower charge. So you are either rage starved or rage capped unless you alternate using whirlwind etc. which is kinda weird to play
Mm hunter at 20 also huge L for putting a skill in the talent tree this early that requires a higher level to unlock (Spotter)
Touren
Member
Spent some time with other classes & specs:
Prot Warrior
For all of Bliz saying about pruning abilities, Prot Warrior's a bit confusing at 20. There's no more Slam as a single target rage spender, but curiously Deep Wounds as our only source of bleeds has been removed as well. To get back bleeds, we have to talent into Rend which sits on the leftmost part of the class tree - meaning we forego the tanking talents on the right side. I'm never comfortable without any form of Dots while tanking, but I may try foregoing Rend seeing @Staffelchef above posted that other AoE abilities' damage have been buffed a fair bit.
As it stands, if we include Rend then there's 4 AoE buttons total to push for a Prot Warrior and I'm pretty sure that isn't Bliz's intention. The rotation is more complex than before with more keybinds lol. WW being more powerful than Revenge could be an oversight & probably numbers might be adjusted later.
But fundamentally the playstyle is similar and I really like Prot Warrior's fluidity; for longest time I thought it would be my least liked tank but it turned out the most fun of all tanks at 20. Just a blast to play.
Priest
What can I say? Renew being axed is huge, huge downer for both Holy & Disc. This means all normal heals have to be hard casted, and it sucks in dungeons especially when wanting to just top people up whilst running to the next pack. I was quite liking Disc playstyle before, but without Renew it has become incredibly cumbersome to maintain Atonement uptime for the whole party, and consequently dps takes a huge hit which spirals onwards of making Atonement heals less effective.
After some rounds in dungeons in both specs, Holy looks better in terms of DPS numbers and delivers better healing capability than Disc despite the heavy losses of Rhapsody, Shield & Renew.
Just as much as healer Priests feel the most gutted so far across the classes I've tried, Shadow Priest has probably the biggest win by having the new tentacle ability for massive AoE QoL improvement. No more tab targeting every single mob to apply instant & hard cast DOTs. It really confounded me when I previously realised low level S.Priests didn't have any meaningful AoE capabilities. On other hand it looks like Shadow Word: Pain damage has come down quite a bit, so single target dps suffers with this AoE tradeoff.
Paladin
In Prot, no Hammer of Wrath just means one less button to press in reaction to procs, so no big deal. Otherwise I'm playing the same as before, with the mastery & other passive mitigation changes not affecting anything rotationally?
For Ret, we have option to play as previous (but again, no active Hammer of Wrath button) since we can still talent into the same abilities, but after some dummy testing, taking the now accessible Avenging Wrath talent is the way to go. Bliz sort of already heavily nudges us in this direction since the free Ret & now passive Hammer of Wrath talent only works in conjunction with Avenging Wrath (both should be merged!).
Here's a weird thing, and I'm sure unintended - taking Avenging Wrath means having to forego Final Verdict, so this single target spender reverts to its base form Templar's Verdict. Templar's Verdict is actually weaker than the AoE spender Divine Storm on single target, so there's really no reason to use the former at moment.
Holy is generally an improvement in healing playstyle, in a sense that the only AoE but seldom used Light of Dawn has no more narrow positional requirement and is now a 360 radius with huge 40 yard range. Still think its too weak though; for a spender it only moves health bars something like 10%.
Pretty surprised Crusader Strike's gone for Holy in the effort to so-call be less reliant on close melee combat, but thematically its strange to be a positionally melee healer holding a melee weapon but having no ability to actually use it other than for auto-attack.
I'm a big fan of the battle-healer playstyle so I do prefer the old Crusader Strike rotation, yet Holy Pally dps was and still is just really low for some reason and the reward for that effort's not really worth it in comparison to say, Mistweaver Monks and Resto Cats.
Wholly agree on this too. Bliz wanted to simplify talents, but its like they have painted themselves into a corner & made many of the talents a straight up mess for lower levels. One pally talent by position near top of tree is supposedly accessible at level 12, but has a straight level 23 requirement hard tacked onto it. Not sure if these talent shenanigans have happened before on previous pre-expansion patches, but I can't imagine Bliz leaving stuff just as it is and I hope moderate rework & refinement be in Bliz's cards for lowbies and levelling toons.
Prot Warrior
For all of Bliz saying about pruning abilities, Prot Warrior's a bit confusing at 20. There's no more Slam as a single target rage spender, but curiously Deep Wounds as our only source of bleeds has been removed as well. To get back bleeds, we have to talent into Rend which sits on the leftmost part of the class tree - meaning we forego the tanking talents on the right side. I'm never comfortable without any form of Dots while tanking, but I may try foregoing Rend seeing @Staffelchef above posted that other AoE abilities' damage have been buffed a fair bit.
As it stands, if we include Rend then there's 4 AoE buttons total to push for a Prot Warrior and I'm pretty sure that isn't Bliz's intention. The rotation is more complex than before with more keybinds lol. WW being more powerful than Revenge could be an oversight & probably numbers might be adjusted later.
But fundamentally the playstyle is similar and I really like Prot Warrior's fluidity; for longest time I thought it would be my least liked tank but it turned out the most fun of all tanks at 20. Just a blast to play.
Priest
What can I say? Renew being axed is huge, huge downer for both Holy & Disc. This means all normal heals have to be hard casted, and it sucks in dungeons especially when wanting to just top people up whilst running to the next pack. I was quite liking Disc playstyle before, but without Renew it has become incredibly cumbersome to maintain Atonement uptime for the whole party, and consequently dps takes a huge hit which spirals onwards of making Atonement heals less effective.
After some rounds in dungeons in both specs, Holy looks better in terms of DPS numbers and delivers better healing capability than Disc despite the heavy losses of Rhapsody, Shield & Renew.
Just as much as healer Priests feel the most gutted so far across the classes I've tried, Shadow Priest has probably the biggest win by having the new tentacle ability for massive AoE QoL improvement. No more tab targeting every single mob to apply instant & hard cast DOTs. It really confounded me when I previously realised low level S.Priests didn't have any meaningful AoE capabilities. On other hand it looks like Shadow Word: Pain damage has come down quite a bit, so single target dps suffers with this AoE tradeoff.
Paladin
In Prot, no Hammer of Wrath just means one less button to press in reaction to procs, so no big deal. Otherwise I'm playing the same as before, with the mastery & other passive mitigation changes not affecting anything rotationally?
For Ret, we have option to play as previous (but again, no active Hammer of Wrath button) since we can still talent into the same abilities, but after some dummy testing, taking the now accessible Avenging Wrath talent is the way to go. Bliz sort of already heavily nudges us in this direction since the free Ret & now passive Hammer of Wrath talent only works in conjunction with Avenging Wrath (both should be merged!).
Here's a weird thing, and I'm sure unintended - taking Avenging Wrath means having to forego Final Verdict, so this single target spender reverts to its base form Templar's Verdict. Templar's Verdict is actually weaker than the AoE spender Divine Storm on single target, so there's really no reason to use the former at moment.
Holy is generally an improvement in healing playstyle, in a sense that the only AoE but seldom used Light of Dawn has no more narrow positional requirement and is now a 360 radius with huge 40 yard range. Still think its too weak though; for a spender it only moves health bars something like 10%.
Pretty surprised Crusader Strike's gone for Holy in the effort to so-call be less reliant on close melee combat, but thematically its strange to be a positionally melee healer holding a melee weapon but having no ability to actually use it other than for auto-attack.
I'm a big fan of the battle-healer playstyle so I do prefer the old Crusader Strike rotation, yet Holy Pally dps was and still is just really low for some reason and the reward for that effort's not really worth it in comparison to say, Mistweaver Monks and Resto Cats.
Wholly agree on this too. Bliz wanted to simplify talents, but its like they have painted themselves into a corner & made many of the talents a straight up mess for lower levels. One pally talent by position near top of tree is supposedly accessible at level 12, but has a straight level 23 requirement hard tacked onto it. Not sure if these talent shenanigans have happened before on previous pre-expansion patches, but I can't imagine Bliz leaving stuff just as it is and I hope moderate rework & refinement be in Bliz's cards for lowbies and levelling toons.
Last edited:
yeah reported it multiple times on the ptr and a few more time since the patch went live.
Jane
New Member
For what it's worth, SV Hunter feels interesting. Raptor doesn't hit like it did before (maybe it's overall because of mob scaling and has nothing to do with the spell itself, idk) and loss of MD still feels awkward, but we now have Boomstick which is insane AoE burst that shreds mob packs in seconds (and can be buffed through tip of the spear, though need some testing). Overall still playable, especially compared to BM which damage is laughable so far.
Also, rip Monks. MW damage output became absolutely pathetic, Brew lost RSK and WW is still made of paper.
.
Also, rip Monks. MW damage output became absolutely pathetic, Brew lost RSK and WW is still made of paper.
.
Formerly, my half-geared 20 Priest could solo dungeons by pressing W & spamming holy nova.
I strolled into Slave pens last night & got roflstomped by the first makura pack.
No renew, holy nova is on a 30sec cd... So, there went that.
Gonna have to tow them through instances with capped toon or an 11.
Did a few runs of the Botanica on a Blood DK & had some real trouble with large packs, but it was doable.
Did a few runs of Sethikk Halls on a Fury War & it was also a bit troublesome but doable.
I have no illusion that Rogue has somehow become a viable solo'er, or Mage.
As soon as realms come back up, I'll be trying Resto shammy
So far, it feels like most classes are weaker, or that dungeons are harder. I'd long thought that the dungeons needed to be buffed,
or that we needed to be nerfed, so while it's an inconvenience; it's gotta be a good thing for the game overall.
beyond that though... I swear, they break the classes just to break them, then go back & 'fix-them' & claim " See? We LISTENED to YOU! "
I strolled into Slave pens last night & got roflstomped by the first makura pack.
No renew, holy nova is on a 30sec cd... So, there went that.
Gonna have to tow them through instances with capped toon or an 11.
Did a few runs of the Botanica on a Blood DK & had some real trouble with large packs, but it was doable.
Did a few runs of Sethikk Halls on a Fury War & it was also a bit troublesome but doable.
I have no illusion that Rogue has somehow become a viable solo'er, or Mage.
As soon as realms come back up, I'll be trying Resto shammy
So far, it feels like most classes are weaker, or that dungeons are harder. I'd long thought that the dungeons needed to be buffed,
or that we needed to be nerfed, so while it's an inconvenience; it's gotta be a good thing for the game overall.
beyond that though... I swear, they break the classes just to break them, then go back & 'fix-them' & claim " See? We LISTENED to YOU! "
Touren
Member
A big part of twinking fun at 20 is being able to solo dungeons. Obviously not too OP like some classes at 11 are, but having some challenge akin to what delves are to max level toons.
Previously it was mostly smooth sailing with my only toons a Druid & Evoker - the strategy was to gear them in TW week, then bring them solo crawl through normal dungeons for the other socketed gears.
Always been hearing Resto Shamans being quite powerful, so recently I took 20 Resto Shaman with mostly fresh TW gears to solo BC dungeons.
First one being Old Hillsbrad was doable - the biggest challenge were the Thrall gauntlet mob packs before the 2nd boss, died + reset a couple times there and eventually learned to use Thrall to tank half the mobs to get past, whereas the rest of dungeon's pretty easy.
Second dungeon was Sethekk, Everything went relatively smoothly until the final 5-mob pack (6, since one of them summons a voidreaver) before last boss. I simply could not get past them in a normal manner, and in the end all I could do was just kill one at a time, die, CR back & kill the next until the pack whittles down to a manageable number.
Third dungeon was Shadow Labyrinth, since there's a great helm loot from the first boss. But that's as far as I could go, as the big packs after the first boss are simply not manageable. I wish Shamans still has access to Hex or stun totem, that would make solo-ing & managing mobs more interesting.
No issues with Slave Pens or Blood Furnace.
Tried some Elemental Shaman, but quickly realised the dps is way below Resto so theres no reason to be in that spec at all - even if for want of of variety as the spells, rotation & playstyle are almost similar to Resto's. Just weaker everything all around.
Also spent some time with a 20 Prot Warrior solo-ing BC dungeons, also only in mostly TW gears. Prot Warrior dps actually looks to be highest among all tank classes (Blood DK's possibly higher, but I haven't played it this patch), and almost certainly 2x a Brewmaster's lol. I find Warrior's Victory Rush self-heal a pretty interesting mechanic - do I expand all rage to quickly kill mobs so to have more VR heals to top up my more rapid declining health, or spend more rage on mitigation for safer but slower kills?
I went to dungeon Auchenai Crypts for easy quick plate gears, and had a rather long & tough time to kill the last boss. But was it pretty satisfying when it finally fell over. Been running without Second Wind, but for last boss this talent was quite mandatory.
Also pugged some TW runs on my fully geared 20 Bear. We may have lost Brambles, but I now realise Berserk also has zero-CD for Frezied Regen heals baked into it, making it the same as what Berserk was for higher level toons previously.
What is really fun though, is the new Persistence talent. Outside of Dream of Cenarius instant Regrowth proc heals, we can now also pop out of bear and hard cast Regrowth anytime without any downsides. I've even specced into Rejuv to work self-hots into the tanking rotation in lieu of Ursoc's Spirit.
We know geared twink tanks in TW get hit much harder; after the anti-twink measures were implemented, the safe way was simply to pull smaller packs (boring). In the WolK TW with my Bear over the weekend, that Persistence talent coupled with the now 2-charge Survival Instincts allowed me to pull much larger groups like before anti-twink. Yes the incoming damage profile can be spiky, but being able to self-heal big chunks of your own health pool (and others!) anytime feels really great.
I think Bears and by extension Druids are one of clear winners now.
Previously it was mostly smooth sailing with my only toons a Druid & Evoker - the strategy was to gear them in TW week, then bring them solo crawl through normal dungeons for the other socketed gears.
Always been hearing Resto Shamans being quite powerful, so recently I took 20 Resto Shaman with mostly fresh TW gears to solo BC dungeons.
First one being Old Hillsbrad was doable - the biggest challenge were the Thrall gauntlet mob packs before the 2nd boss, died + reset a couple times there and eventually learned to use Thrall to tank half the mobs to get past, whereas the rest of dungeon's pretty easy.
Second dungeon was Sethekk, Everything went relatively smoothly until the final 5-mob pack (6, since one of them summons a voidreaver) before last boss. I simply could not get past them in a normal manner, and in the end all I could do was just kill one at a time, die, CR back & kill the next until the pack whittles down to a manageable number.
Third dungeon was Shadow Labyrinth, since there's a great helm loot from the first boss. But that's as far as I could go, as the big packs after the first boss are simply not manageable. I wish Shamans still has access to Hex or stun totem, that would make solo-ing & managing mobs more interesting.
No issues with Slave Pens or Blood Furnace.
Tried some Elemental Shaman, but quickly realised the dps is way below Resto so theres no reason to be in that spec at all - even if for want of of variety as the spells, rotation & playstyle are almost similar to Resto's. Just weaker everything all around.
Also spent some time with a 20 Prot Warrior solo-ing BC dungeons, also only in mostly TW gears. Prot Warrior dps actually looks to be highest among all tank classes (Blood DK's possibly higher, but I haven't played it this patch), and almost certainly 2x a Brewmaster's lol. I find Warrior's Victory Rush self-heal a pretty interesting mechanic - do I expand all rage to quickly kill mobs so to have more VR heals to top up my more rapid declining health, or spend more rage on mitigation for safer but slower kills?
I went to dungeon Auchenai Crypts for easy quick plate gears, and had a rather long & tough time to kill the last boss. But was it pretty satisfying when it finally fell over. Been running without Second Wind, but for last boss this talent was quite mandatory.
Also pugged some TW runs on my fully geared 20 Bear. We may have lost Brambles, but I now realise Berserk also has zero-CD for Frezied Regen heals baked into it, making it the same as what Berserk was for higher level toons previously.
What is really fun though, is the new Persistence talent. Outside of Dream of Cenarius instant Regrowth proc heals, we can now also pop out of bear and hard cast Regrowth anytime without any downsides. I've even specced into Rejuv to work self-hots into the tanking rotation in lieu of Ursoc's Spirit.
We know geared twink tanks in TW get hit much harder; after the anti-twink measures were implemented, the safe way was simply to pull smaller packs (boring). In the WolK TW with my Bear over the weekend, that Persistence talent coupled with the now 2-charge Survival Instincts allowed me to pull much larger groups like before anti-twink. Yes the incoming damage profile can be spiky, but being able to self-heal big chunks of your own health pool (and others!) anytime feels really great.
I think Bears and by extension Druids are one of clear winners now.
Last edited:
You can untalent this in the class tree, its a talent that makes it a 30s cd.
Classes are actually stronger for the most part its just monsters across the board got bumped right up.
Even world mobs got a health/damage boost lol.
Sneedge
Member
Holy Nova takes 4 seconds off the Chastise CD and Flash Heal takes 4 seconds off the Serenity CD. If you're having a rough go you can spam Holy Nova while you use recuperate in between pulls. Spending one of our few talent points on a 30 second Holy Nova is just a self CC.
Last edited:
Missing the Shield real bad rn @Sneedge , & soloing on a priest without it feels pretty terribad.
& thanks @toskosa , I didn't read the ability bubble... just saw +500% to Holy Nova & went " fuck YEA-UH! "
Basically.... soloing in general is misery rn. It reminds me of soloing back towards the end of Legion.
VERY challenging & not an expeditious way to kit out a toon, unless they're a tank.
Back to the rando-ques, or getting towed through instances with 11's or capped toons.
& thanks @toskosa , I didn't read the ability bubble... just saw +500% to Holy Nova & went " fuck YEA-UH! "
Basically.... soloing in general is misery rn. It reminds me of soloing back towards the end of Legion.
VERY challenging & not an expeditious way to kit out a toon, unless they're a tank.
Back to the rando-ques, or getting towed through instances with 11's or capped toons.