there's a ton of changes to common primary/secondary damage dealing abilities which are incredible. I don't see how there's any need for complaints about the VQ change.
Giving WDs the most attention than any other class in the upcoming class
Making dogs and gargantuans viable for both tank and glass cannon builds
Boosting base mana regen
Improving animation timing issues on: Firebomb, Plague of Toads, and Corpse Spiders
Confirmed damage increases to: Acid Cloud, Firebats, Firebomb and Spirit Barrage (and possibly more)
Buffing 2Handers in regards to DoTs.
And everyone is up in arms over them changing VQ in which they have said:
As we continue internal testing, one of our checks to determine how well Vision Quest is performing is to see if a level 60 player can still summon hordes of stampeding Zombie Bears. While we can't accommodate every skill and build combination out there, the goal for Vision Quest is that a player who has chosen the right passives and gear will still be able to summon waves of stampeding bears for at least a few seconds.
Sheesh. I'm glad that blizzard is doing the game design here and not some of those who frequent the forums. I don't think people are realizing the potential that is unlocked by these overall ability buffs + a change in VQ which is probably more in line it what it SHOULD have been in the first place.
To sum it up: Without the mana regeneration bonus from 1.0.3-vision quest, the witch doctor is not able to sustain high amount of damage as long as he can now. Because the damage of the bears will remain same in 1.0.4 and that seems to be the DPS they want witch doctors to do at best, it will mean that the witch doctor's kill-speed is going to drop. This is why we are complaining. we would simply want to have the 1.0.4 changes without losing skill-speed.
I read your whole post, just quoting this so it doesn't fill up the whole screen.
I'm sorry but I still think you're assuming that our other abilities won't be changed. You're saying that spirit barrage at 500% damage isn't enough? Consider the fact running spirit within, combined with something like blood ritual or spiritual attunement, or heck, even widwomaker spiders. That's an extremely cheap spell.
I'm making my assumption off of what they are doing for monks and barbs, making spirit/rage spenders WORTH IT. They want to make a resource worth it when you push the button, or as they've said the resource system isn't working. They've given those classes significant buffs, there's no reason to assume we are no different.
Let's ALSO not forget that bears is a RUNE ability. Rune of an ability that probably wasn't really intended to be spammed like a primary. But what's to say that tons of other late level runes won't be brought in line with bears? What's to say acid cloud won't be given 3x as much damage with a better DoT, or locust swarm won't have it's cast range increased and it's damage increased. We simply don't know, what we do know is that they are buffing a LOT of abilities
You say that it's unlikely that builds better than 1.03 VQ builds will emerge. You go into a whole slew of reasons why this won't happen, and it's all entirely based off of 1.03 incarnations of these abilities and runes. I'm sorry I'm just not buying it that this is really that big of a nerf. I'll also even mention the "casual" aspect of how 'lack of skill' running a 1.03 VQ bears build might be.
I'm already thinking that the increased mana regen + corpsespider/widowmakers + spiritual attunement (or blood ritual, as it is addition by subtraction) + VQ is an awesome build that can allow you to spam A LOT of damage, even with PTV.
Where did Blizzard say we're getting better mana regen gear?
Simply put, mana = damage. The less mana we have the less damage we can put out. It's not like bats or bears are the only things that take a lot of mana. Blizzard set expectations that we would be buffed with these changes but all they did was possibly fix pets.
@ Lorien: Garg is getting the same buff as dogs
I may be wrong about the regen gear, I don't have a source other than I thought I recalled a part of the systems dev blog referring to gear/stat rolls.
I still think you are looking at this the wrong way and still basing this off a 1.04 VQ change applied to 1.03 abilities. I agree, mana = damage, there's no doubt about that. I'll use spirit barrage vs bears.
Bears do 236% damage per bear for 140 mana. Spirit barrage does 190% for 108 mana (spirit is willing makes it 64, since you get a refund). So you're either doing 708% total damage for 140 mana that does aoe damage, or 190% for 64. I'll just make up a term and call it a mana/damage coefficient, meaning that per mana spent, you're doing X damage. In the case of bears, it's 5.05 (708/140), in the case of SB, it's 2.9 and single damage only.
Clearly bears is a winner, and as blizzard said it's an obvious choice because it looks so much better. Keep in mind that they are both within the same "category" of abilities (decay). Just think, when they say they are giving straight damage increases to most WD abilities, they are going to bring that gap down in that mana/damage coefficient. Spirit barrage could do 500% damage for 64 mana.
My point in all of this is that mana is being overall improved through more economic damage abilities. We feel starved for mana because right now if we use spirit barrage, we have to use a TON of mana to get it to do even close to the same damage as bears. It brings it back to my point that you're saying VQ is a nerf and is nerfing the class so we do less damage? However I"m saying that through their damage buffs, nearly 90% of our abilities are going to be much more worth it.
No... the reason why people used VQ was because our ONLY passive skill that increases damage also makes our spells cost 30% more. This creates a situation where you can pick a primary spell and NOT VQ or you can pick a high damage spell AND VQ. Now, our only option is to do less damage or pick PtV + primary spell. PtV needs to be changed if they eliminate Vision Quest (which is effectively what they did).
So now we have more build choices and we also grow weaker as a class. That's not a tradeoff I was expecting or appreciate.
I can't help but feel you're looking at one ability in a 1.04 incarnation and applying it to 1.03 abilities. Obviously PTV and VQ (1.04) would suck if you weren't spamming bears right now and tried to use spirit barrage. 1.04 is going to see a ton of abilities getting buff, and again as I said their animations being sped up which *should be* an innate buff to attack speed for us, thus increasing our damage. Blizzard said specifically WD is getting the greatest overhaul of abilities. They also said that they aren't touching splinters/bears because they want to bring other abilities more in line with it.
We're also doing a straight damage increase on many skills including (but not limited to) Acid Cloud, Firebats, Firebomb, and Spirit Barrage.
Without any details of HOW much these abilities are being buffed I dont' see how you have a case to run out of the house screaming that because VQ is being changed, that all of a sudden the class "won't do damage". Grow weaker as a class? Do you know how ridiculous this sounds? If you're going to say we run VQ because of PTV, then I can use the same logic to say that we run PTV because all the current abilities are TRASH. As in, 1.03 WD is a rubbish class.
We're getting a base mana regen increase, there's going to be better mana regen gear, with VQ you're essentially going to have a 30% regen with almost 100% uptime, and that doesn't include that you can still run blood ritual (15% mana reduction) or Spiritual Attunement with VQ and PTV and still do fine.
Simply put, we have no idea what nitty gritty details are coming out, but we know that blizzard is buffing the class. I really don't get how you can come off saying that we're going to grow weaker as a class.
I'm sorry, the reactions some of you are having are just silly. We have no idea the specifics of damage and buffs being made to abilities. The only reason VQ builds are attractive pre 1.03 is because most if not every non-VQ build was purely trash and relied on gearing yourself to have good gear than good builds.
Look at the forest not the trees. By inherently making animations faster they are giving us, what will most likely be, an innate buff to attack speed. No other class seems to be getting their animations adjusted so that's a lot bigger than you think.
The changes to mana are going to allow so many other build varieties, combined with overall buffs to their damage, there's a lot to like.
I would think people would be happy to see their class expanded beyond the 1 dimensional bear/dart spam. But maybe I'm wrong. I really don't see how anyone sees an overall class buff/overhaul (not including details we haven't seen yet) as a negative thing.
I think it's guaranteed that stupid overpowered zombie bears will get the nerf bat.
This game is about being incredibly strong to begin with. Blizz has already said they are focusing on abilities that aren't being used, so it's probably safe to say that it won't be touched.
I think we're going to see mana adjustments as the main change. Most of our abilities are good, they're just extremely expensive (even without VT) for the paltry damage they do.
Beyond that I think we'll see some buffs and a few range changes. So far Barb/Wiz haven't had their passives changed. But then again these posts may just be a sampling of big ideas with some nitty gritty being in the actual patch notes.
We'll see soon enough in a few hours.
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And everyone is up in arms over them changing VQ in which they have said:
Sheesh. I'm glad that blizzard is doing the game design here and not some of those who frequent the forums. I don't think people are realizing the potential that is unlocked by these overall ability buffs + a change in VQ which is probably more in line it what it SHOULD have been in the first place.
I read your whole post, just quoting this so it doesn't fill up the whole screen.
I'm sorry but I still think you're assuming that our other abilities won't be changed. You're saying that spirit barrage at 500% damage isn't enough? Consider the fact running spirit within, combined with something like blood ritual or spiritual attunement, or heck, even widwomaker spiders. That's an extremely cheap spell.
I'm making my assumption off of what they are doing for monks and barbs, making spirit/rage spenders WORTH IT. They want to make a resource worth it when you push the button, or as they've said the resource system isn't working. They've given those classes significant buffs, there's no reason to assume we are no different.
Let's ALSO not forget that bears is a RUNE ability. Rune of an ability that probably wasn't really intended to be spammed like a primary. But what's to say that tons of other late level runes won't be brought in line with bears? What's to say acid cloud won't be given 3x as much damage with a better DoT, or locust swarm won't have it's cast range increased and it's damage increased. We simply don't know, what we do know is that they are buffing a LOT of abilities
You say that it's unlikely that builds better than 1.03 VQ builds will emerge. You go into a whole slew of reasons why this won't happen, and it's all entirely based off of 1.03 incarnations of these abilities and runes. I'm sorry I'm just not buying it that this is really that big of a nerf. I'll also even mention the "casual" aspect of how 'lack of skill' running a 1.03 VQ bears build might be.
I'm already thinking that the increased mana regen + corpsespider/widowmakers + spiritual attunement (or blood ritual, as it is addition by subtraction) + VQ is an awesome build that can allow you to spam A LOT of damage, even with PTV.
I may be wrong about the regen gear, I don't have a source other than I thought I recalled a part of the systems dev blog referring to gear/stat rolls.
I still think you are looking at this the wrong way and still basing this off a 1.04 VQ change applied to 1.03 abilities. I agree, mana = damage, there's no doubt about that. I'll use spirit barrage vs bears.
Bears do 236% damage per bear for 140 mana. Spirit barrage does 190% for 108 mana (spirit is willing makes it 64, since you get a refund). So you're either doing 708% total damage for 140 mana that does aoe damage, or 190% for 64. I'll just make up a term and call it a mana/damage coefficient, meaning that per mana spent, you're doing X damage. In the case of bears, it's 5.05 (708/140), in the case of SB, it's 2.9 and single damage only.
Clearly bears is a winner, and as blizzard said it's an obvious choice because it looks so much better. Keep in mind that they are both within the same "category" of abilities (decay). Just think, when they say they are giving straight damage increases to most WD abilities, they are going to bring that gap down in that mana/damage coefficient. Spirit barrage could do 500% damage for 64 mana.
My point in all of this is that mana is being overall improved through more economic damage abilities. We feel starved for mana because right now if we use spirit barrage, we have to use a TON of mana to get it to do even close to the same damage as bears. It brings it back to my point that you're saying VQ is a nerf and is nerfing the class so we do less damage? However I"m saying that through their damage buffs, nearly 90% of our abilities are going to be much more worth it.
I can't help but feel you're looking at one ability in a 1.04 incarnation and applying it to 1.03 abilities. Obviously PTV and VQ (1.04) would suck if you weren't spamming bears right now and tried to use spirit barrage. 1.04 is going to see a ton of abilities getting buff, and again as I said their animations being sped up which *should be* an innate buff to attack speed for us, thus increasing our damage. Blizzard said specifically WD is getting the greatest overhaul of abilities. They also said that they aren't touching splinters/bears because they want to bring other abilities more in line with it.
Without any details of HOW much these abilities are being buffed I dont' see how you have a case to run out of the house screaming that because VQ is being changed, that all of a sudden the class "won't do damage". Grow weaker as a class? Do you know how ridiculous this sounds? If you're going to say we run VQ because of PTV, then I can use the same logic to say that we run PTV because all the current abilities are TRASH. As in, 1.03 WD is a rubbish class.
We're getting a base mana regen increase, there's going to be better mana regen gear, with VQ you're essentially going to have a 30% regen with almost 100% uptime, and that doesn't include that you can still run blood ritual (15% mana reduction) or Spiritual Attunement with VQ and PTV and still do fine.
Simply put, we have no idea what nitty gritty details are coming out, but we know that blizzard is buffing the class. I really don't get how you can come off saying that we're going to grow weaker as a class.
Look at the forest not the trees. By inherently making animations faster they are giving us, what will most likely be, an innate buff to attack speed. No other class seems to be getting their animations adjusted so that's a lot bigger than you think.
The changes to mana are going to allow so many other build varieties, combined with overall buffs to their damage, there's a lot to like.
I would think people would be happy to see their class expanded beyond the 1 dimensional bear/dart spam. But maybe I'm wrong. I really don't see how anyone sees an overall class buff/overhaul (not including details we haven't seen yet) as a negative thing.
This game is about being incredibly strong to begin with. Blizz has already said they are focusing on abilities that aren't being used, so it's probably safe to say that it won't be touched.
Beyond that I think we'll see some buffs and a few range changes. So far Barb/Wiz haven't had their passives changed. But then again these posts may just be a sampling of big ideas with some nitty gritty being in the actual patch notes.
We'll see soon enough in a few hours.