World of Warcraft™

Arena:

• All set-bonuses, procs, and on-use effects on gear received anywhere but from Honor or Conquest vendors will no longer function in arena. (Maybe?)

Death Knight:

• Icebound Fortitude now decreases physical damage taken by 40%, up from 20%, and no longer costs Runic Power. It no longer reduces magical damage taken.

• Necrotic Strike will now absorb roughly 10% less healing, and no longer applies a casting speed debuff effect.

• Death Grip will no longer interrupt casts if used in melee range.

Unholy:

• Gnaw no longer costs energy, and is no longer on a pet global-cooldown.

• Leap no longer costs energy, and is no longer on a pet global-cooldown.

Blood:

• Sanguine Fortitude now reduces magic damage taken by 25/50% and melee damage taken by an additional 5/10%.
(This means Icebound Fortitude functions identically for Blood as it did before.)

Druid:

Balance:

• Moonkin Form no longer reduces damage taken.

• Owlkin Frenzy now reduces the Druid's damage taken in all forms by 7%/14%/20%. This is a passive effect, and is not tied to the proc.

Feral Combat:

• Predator's Swiftness redesigned. Predator's Swiftness now lasts 15 seconds and cannot be dispelled, but using Predator's Swiftness now incurs a thirty second internal cooldown on Predator's Swiftness proccing.

Restoration:

• Nature's Ward will now apply at 35% health, down from 50% health, and in addition to Rejuvenate it will instantly heal you for 20% of your maximum health. Cannot occur more than once per minute. In addition, it will not reduce all damage taken by 5/10%.

Hunter

• Widow Venom removed.

• Arcane Shot will now reduce the effectiveness of any healing on the target by 25%.

• Disengage now provides immunity to instant control effects during the animation.

• All pet utility abilities are off the pet GCD.

• Scatter Trap will no longer cause targets to wander.

Mage:

• Mage food will no longer restore health in arena.

Fire:

• Impact and Improved Scorch have switched place in the talent tree.

Frost:

• Frostburn now increases all spell damage on Frozen Targets by 2% per point of Mastery, down from 2.5%.

• Frostbolt's damage has been increased by roughly 10%.

Rogue:

• Smokebomb is no longer affected by Glyph of Preparation.

Subtlety:

• Find Weakness now reduces armor by 25%/50%, down from 35%/70%.

• Sanguary Vein now increases damage done to targets affected by bleeds by 10/20%, up from 8/16%.

Shaman:

• Searing Totem will now prefer to attack the target you are attacking. Control effects will not count as attacking a target.

• Tremor Totem will now protect any party member (including the Shaman) from the next fear, charm, or sleep affect cast on them. It will no longer break preexisting fear, charm, or sleep affects, and can be used while feared, charmed, or sleep, but will not break the current fear, charm, or sleep affect on the Shaman.

Enhancement:

• Earthen Power now reduces damage taken by 3/6%.

Warrior:

• Shield Wall now has a 3 minute cooldown, down from five minutes.

• Spell Reflection is now a three second duration, down from five seconds, but reflects all spells during that duration.

• Hamstring now reduces movement speed by 70%, up from 50%.

Protection:

• Shield Mastery now reduces Shield Wall's cooldown by 20/40/60 seconds, down from 60/120/180 seconds.

Arms:

• Lambs to the Slaughter lasts thirty seconds, up from fifteen seconds.

• Wrecking Crew now increases movement speed by 7/15%.

• Throwdown will no longer trigger an animation separate from the default stun animation.

The idea for this thread is to put forward suggestions to balancing the long season before MoP comes out. Keeping in mind this 'rate of change' philosophy, we don't want any drastic changes to how arenas are played and carried out, or they definitely won't be implemented. For example, while I love Blizzards idea for the new dispel mechanics, they're not something I would implement in a minor balance patch. Similarly, I think most classes do far too much damage in a small time period in arena, or that CC w/o CD's is annoying, but if we were to change gameplay that fundamentally it would completely change how arenas are played.

ALL feedback should be constructive. This is not a 'don't nerf me bro' or 'class is fine L2P' thread. Of course mention that you think one change or another would be overpowered or underpowered, and we'll see if we can come to a general consensus as to whether or not it should go through, or make suggestions. Avoid Ad Hominem, explaining why an argument is bad not why the player that makes it is bad.


Current topics I'm unsure of:

Should drinking be allowed in arena? While instinct says no, I feel like it might change gameplay to much for Blizzard to ever implement it. (Also, Mana Burn would probably have to be tweaked).

PvE gear goes, I think we all agree. I doubt Blizzard would though.

Should IBF simply not cost runic power while leaving Necrotic Strike alone. I think this change looks good to Death Knights in a vacuum, but we're also trying to reduce Rogue burst and so on and so forth, which might be really the change we need. What're your thought on the matter?

Is the nerf to Mage Mastery too hard, especially when considering the removal of PvE gear?

Is Lock/Shaman too powerful, and if so, what would be done to fix it?

I realize Restoration Druids have a problem with hard-switches, but due to a lack of understanding of Restoration Druid mechanics, would need the suggestions of others to improve this.

Should something be done to instant cyclones, and if so, what?

Besides for aforementioned classes having problems, do Paladins, Priests, and Warlocks have any concerns or does anyone have any concerns about said classes? I think a big one is: what is to be done with Retribution Paladin?

Et cetera.

I await your feedback!

Should add "wishlist" to your subject.

02/20/2012 11:38 AMPosted by Bultek

Should add "wishlist" to your subject.

Not sure if you're saying that these changes are biased (entirely possible, though not intended) or just that Blizzard is probably not going to try and balance PvP at all until MoP comes out (a point on which we agree).

Or just to make sure this isn't false advertisement.

Lots of things to address here, I'll just provide a small sentence about each class change.

Death Knight: All okay except for the Blood Buff, I think they're fine as is.
Resto Druid: They need a major overall defensive buff, a minute CD Cheat Death-ish type thing won't work.
Hunters: Meh, why not?
Mages: The frostburn nerf is too extreme
Rogues: Spirit Link Totem should be countered by Smoke. Also, this has been mentioned many times; The reason Rogues are so powerful right now is because of legendary daggers/PvE trinkets. Prep not resetting Smoke.... Sure.
Shamans: Enh also needs a small damage boost. Include a resto shaman nerf(Something to do with ground totem/tremor totem).
Warriors: Sure.

they really need to fix disengage. or make it so that blink, charge, shadowstep, and death grip all have equivalent chances to arbitrarily fail.

Lots of things to address here, I'll just provide a small sentence about each class change.

Death Knight: All okay except for the Blood Buff, I think they're fine as is.

There's no Blood buff, that function is just to make sure IBF works identically to how it does now, mostly for PvE purposes.

Resto Druid: They need a major overall defensive buff, a minute CD Cheat Death-ish type thing won't work.

Passive mitigation would definitely be good. I was thinking of buffing Barkskin, but definitely don't think Feral needs it. Maybe I'll just throw a 10% damage reduction passive somewhere into the tree. Or something. I really wish I knew more about Restoration mechanics.

Mages: The frostburn nerf is too extreme

I guess so. I think if we removed PvE gear a good amount of the shatter-silliness would be gone. Maybe 2% instead of 2.5%?

Rogues: Spirit Link Totem should be countered by Smoke. Also, this has been mentioned many times; The reason Rogues are so powerful right now is because of legendary daggers/PvE trinkets. Prep not resetting Smoke.... Sure.

Spirit Link Totem umm... Hmm. I'd like to see for feedback, specifically from Restoration Shamans. From what I've seen Restoration Shamans have very few ways of dealing with melee outside of pillar-humping and kiting.

And I'm going to have to disagree with you on the last point. Rogues, PvE geared or not, are capable of extremely powerful burst, especially for the amount of CC and survivability they have.

Shamans: Enh also needs a small damage boost. Include a resto shaman nerf(Something to do with ground totem/tremor totem).

I'd say Enhance damage is fine, and the Searing Totem change would definitely help out.

Edit:

Another thing that comes to mind is Hunters. I know a lot of them use the two piece bonus from PvE to help out with Focus Regen, and was wondering if there was some way to compensate for this.

02/20/2012 11:35 AMPosted by Corpseicle

• Mage food is no longer usable in arena.

No >:[

Frostbolt would really have to see a 20-30% damage increase to really encourage a haste setup that allows more Frostbolts rather than Ice Lances, imo.

And the mastery nerf is too harsh. Let's say, just for an example, you get a shatter. Just 30k, 25k, 25k. That's 80k. Your nerf almost cuts it in half. I would say about 1.75-2 would be better.

02/20/2012 11:35 AMPosted by Corpseicle

Mage food is no longer usable in arena.

?

If you're toning down Find Weakness then tone down Bear form and Blood DKs.

edit: Also notice how rogues became "MYSTERIOUSLY OP" when the new content was released.

It's the trinks/leg daggers.

Mage Mastery scaling changed to 2% per point.

I think the food has to go. I don't know why it was ever allowed in really. Or maybe it doesn't apply the eating buff, just drinking. Big money save :P.

Edit: Dyf, can I just say I am in absolute love with your set. Might put a blue shirt on though.

I don't think Blood DK's are a problem outside of getting lucky against comps in twos, specifically with something like non-DK (or maybe rogue) melee healer. Feral... A lot of people QQ about Enraged Regeneration but I think it would be a lot better to just nerf the passive defensive bonuses it gets, mostly against melee. I don't know exactly how I'd do this though, especially if we wanted to avoid nerfing Bear Tanking.

Some of these suggestions are right on. For example all the pet ability GCD's and the rogue stuff. The DK and hunter stuff looks good as well. Frostburn nerf may be too heavy but I understand, lol. Maybe if they did that and set the default mastery back to 8, instead of 2.

Oh, and what up with the food lol? People can just buy it lol.

The food, for the confused, is that you cannot eat in arena. You can however, eat Mage food, as it counts as drinking, and it gives health as well. I don't mind people getting free things, but I don't understand the eating part of it.

Edit:

Gave Druid 10% passive mitigation. Still need feedback on making it easier for them to deal with switches.

Does mage food still give you health and mana in arena, or did they fix it so it only functions as a drink?

Edit: Well, the post above mine covered it. I would rather see Blizzard put a bit of time into making the food half not function in Arena than removing it entirely, but if it can't be done then the tiny bit of gold spend on water won't kill them.

02/20/2012 12:25 PMPosted by Corpseicle

The food, for the confused, is that you cannot eat in arena. You can however, eat Mage food, as it counts as drinking, and it gives health as well. I don't mind people getting free things, but I don't understand the eating part of it.

Ohhh alright, you mean, you don't want people healing through food. That did confuse me, lol. I thought you didn't want drinking anymore so you wanted to ban mage food. However, I was thinking, duh, people can still buy it, lol.

I'd like to see drinking removed (or at least the get out of combat mechanic made a bit more difficult), especially in twos (yeah loltwos), but I don't know if that's too big a change for a patch or not.

• Shield Wall now has a 3 minute cooldown, down from five minutes.

• Spell Reflection is now a three second duration, down from five seconds, but reflects all spells during that duration.

• Hamstring now reduces movement speed by 70%, up from 50%.

Protection:

• Shield Mastery now reduces Shield Wall's cooldown by 20/40/60 seconds, down from 60/120/180 seconds.

Arms:

• Lambs to the Slaughter lasts thirty seconds, up from fifteen seconds.

• Wrecking Crew now increases movement speed by 7/15%.

• Throwdown will no longer trigger an animation separate from the default stun animation.

Marry me?

First list I have seen that is for the most part spot on to many classes issues, might lack in some areas, Resto druids need some overhauls in other areas it would seem, and enhancement shamans, searing totem and Lash need to honestly be unattached, its a bad mechanic/talent and involves way too much ramp up time.

overall nice list though, and I think it balances a lot of issues, also just the fact someone 'possibly not a warrior' finally listed things we have needed the entire expac.


I do also agree drinking should be removed, I sense mana burn posts would triple though, so likely mana burn would see another nerf, or just removal altogether....which in the long run is fine, but short term would make classes such as paladin never run oom, until stats were adjusted to force mana loss.

I think what most resto druids lack in comparison to other classes is damage absorption, pretty much every healer except them have damage absorbs, adding some sort of HoT style bubble might help, maybe like

Lifebloom Bloom in addition to the heal gives a bubble absorbing 'x'% of the bloom effect, lasting 15 seconds, stacks up to 3 times.

just a small idea.