No change to Pierce the Veil? I'm pretty shocked. Do we need to talk about the terrible design of this skill?
Horrify cooldown reduction but no reduction on Mass Confusion?
Also the number adjustments seem to fit in with everything else in the patch, and by that I mean Blizzard balances the math and completely overlooks the functionality of the skills. A good example of this is sacrifice. Even if you have no cooldown on summoning your dogs, you are basically casting two spells to deal 275% damage, or 137% per cast. I realize there is little to no mana cost involved, but I'd rather pay mana for a spell that does 200% damage every time I cast it.
Spirit barrage increase damage by 40%? Rush of Essence / mana returns is really the only reason to use this spell, and it might be enough, but come on - Dire bats for 220% damage AOE? Do they not realize that AOE is a big deal?
Huge increase to Acid Cloud DoT damage (not the problem) with a minor increase to the immediate damage (the problem).
Plague of Toads mana reduction (not the problem) and no damage increase / AI fix (the problem).
No changes to pierce the veil? Well, not directly, but your mana regeneration is getting boosted by 2.25x. This indirectly boosts Pierce the Veil.
Say what? PtV is only a worthwhile passive if you can have infinite (or near infinite) mana. In 1.0.3, this was done via Vision Quest (which will be removed). In both 1.0.3 and 1.0.4, it will be done by using low mana cost spells (splinters most likely). The only other possible worthwhile use of the skill is if you can kill things before you deplete your mana pool (possibly pvp or if you completely outgear the content).
It won't be worth using outside of splinter builds since you gain 20% damage but lose 30% damage in the form of mana.
I'm looking at the changes (for all classes) from the datamined information and... is it me, or does it seem a bit... incomplete?
I hope it's incomplete... I was expecting changes to sacrifice, haunt, locust swarm, etc. I wasn't expecting even more nerfs to us like the spirit vessel reduction to 2 seconds (and no mention of any fixes to the 3-4 bugs that come along with spirit vessel).
I'm pretty bummed by those changes if they're complete. I don't see any new viable builds that stand out besides adding pets to builds or trying a pet sac build (which imo will be a bit weak at farming since the game is about killing champs and you won't be able to spawn more dogs when you're no longer kills monsters when you reach a rare pack).
Ruppgu, I don't remember if I posted it in THIS thread, but (yep, it was on the previous page) Bats is not going away. If anything, it's getting better overall, due to being able to actually use cooldowns as needed instead of blowing them for regen. The build kites a lot more than bears, so the increased base regen is a HUGE help, plus dropping a Rain Dance while actually being able to have defenders out will top you off while simultaneously upping your damage by 20% for 20 seconds.
The only difference is that, if you want to use VQ, you replace at least one of your cooldowns with Spider Queen (cast every 15-19 seconds) or Pyrogeist (cast every 4-8 seconds). Part of the Blog was that cast animations are getting quicker for us, as well. Heck, I'm not even going to be using VQ, instead shifting to some Max Mana gear and Spiritual Attunement.
An important thing to note (that I think a lot of people are forgetting) is that the best way to play the game in 1.0.4 will be to group (compared to solo in the past). Grouping combined with pets that (hopefully) survive well enough will cause most of the kiting we currently do to go away.
Even in 1.0.3 I'd have to throttle my bat casts after I cast zombie wall due to mana (and that's with VQ up). The build will definitely have to change. I'm hoping I can find a build that'll work great with my MF gear (which only has mana regen on the main hand).
It seems like most of the players that are just farming Act 3 right now hate the changes and people that are still progressing enjoy the changes. Nothing against those people... but it seems to show you the point of view of both camps. At this point in time, I don't really care much about using different builds. I do care that a build I found pretty fun (direbats) is getting removed from the game though.
On the positive side, I'm excited to try pets in my build. Maybe splinters + direbats + pets.
At this point in the game though, all I care about is farming and I just don't see how farming is going to be better for me in 1.0.4. All I can see is that it will be worse and it will be better for other classes. I mean sprint barbs actually got buffed by the bash changes... it feels like a punch in the gut.
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.
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.
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.
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.
if it's true, it's a major nerf to vision quest builds which would turn me off a lot. If there was one thought in my head going into the changes, it was that I hope they don't touch builds people currently enjoy (vision quest builds).
VQ is just one passive skill. Far better that blizzard change it than try to adjust every skill relative to it's current iteration (assuming it caused problems in relation to the general re-balancing effort). Something tells me they wouldn't arbitrarily change the skill just because people currently use it.
Well there's a difference between changing how it works and nerfing how much mana regen we get from it. If the above info is true, it's a change AND a massive nerf to vision quest builds.
Maybe it's all about expectations, but I was expecting my WD to be more powerful after these changes, not less. We'll see when we get to the real notes....
if it's true, it's a major nerf to vision quest builds which would turn me off a lot. If there was one thought in my head going into the changes, it was that I hope they don't touch builds people currently enjoy (vision quest builds).
WHAHAH, the mana issue got fixed in a way we never could have predicted.
now, our primary spells will buff our mana regen by 30% for 5 seconds after using em and they seem to stack. they are also free!
in addition to that our base regen will be 45 instead of 20! and that with the new primary mana regen + gear, all WDs mana problems are pretty much solved, and we have a reason to rotate skill usage witch is great.
source?
That would be interesting (although it sounds overpowered imo). Blizzard hasn't updated their site yet so I'm not sure how trustworthy your info is.
It's looking like we'll be the last preview So far they have been going in the same order listed in their post yesterday since monk is the first one up today. Probably won't get our preview until 2am tonight
I'm preparing myself to be disappointed after seeing that the first 2 blogs were only about strict + damage changes to skills. I expected that the WD changes would be more than just buffing the damage of our least used abilities. If that's all it is while throwing us a pet bone with pets gaining a benefit from +vit (or taking less damage from elite affixes), then I'll be very disappointed.
I hope the WD blog is the first one out the door today.
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I meant the infinite mana benefit of VQ is being removed.
Say what? PtV is only a worthwhile passive if you can have infinite (or near infinite) mana. In 1.0.3, this was done via Vision Quest (which will be removed). In both 1.0.3 and 1.0.4, it will be done by using low mana cost spells (splinters most likely). The only other possible worthwhile use of the skill is if you can kill things before you deplete your mana pool (possibly pvp or if you completely outgear the content).
It won't be worth using outside of splinter builds since you gain 20% damage but lose 30% damage in the form of mana.
I hope it's incomplete... I was expecting changes to sacrifice, haunt, locust swarm, etc. I wasn't expecting even more nerfs to us like the spirit vessel reduction to 2 seconds (and no mention of any fixes to the 3-4 bugs that come along with spirit vessel).
I'm pretty bummed by those changes if they're complete. I don't see any new viable builds that stand out besides adding pets to builds or trying a pet sac build (which imo will be a bit weak at farming since the game is about killing champs and you won't be able to spawn more dogs when you're no longer kills monsters when you reach a rare pack).
An important thing to note (that I think a lot of people are forgetting) is that the best way to play the game in 1.0.4 will be to group (compared to solo in the past). Grouping combined with pets that (hopefully) survive well enough will cause most of the kiting we currently do to go away.
Even in 1.0.3 I'd have to throttle my bat casts after I cast zombie wall due to mana (and that's with VQ up). The build will definitely have to change. I'm hoping I can find a build that'll work great with my MF gear (which only has mana regen on the main hand).
At this point in the game though, all I care about is farming and I just don't see how farming is going to be better for me in 1.0.4. All I can see is that it will be worse and it will be better for other classes. I mean sprint barbs actually got buffed by the bash changes... it feels like a punch in the gut.
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
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.
We just lost our best dps builds. If you care at all about farming, those mana changes hurt.
Well there's a difference between changing how it works and nerfing how much mana regen we get from it. If the above info is true, it's a change AND a massive nerf to vision quest builds.
Maybe it's all about expectations, but I was expecting my WD to be more powerful after these changes, not less. We'll see when we get to the real notes....
That would be interesting (although it sounds overpowered imo). Blizzard hasn't updated their site yet so I'm not sure how trustworthy your info is.
Let's hope they're saving the best for last.....
I hope the WD blog is the first one out the door today.