WoW Releases Major Changes in Pre-Expansion Patch

[Marowit]

The druid changes are pretty fun - i'm loving that I actually get to choose talents that I want, instead of cookie-cutter builds that are designed to maximize dps/hps

 

[sneakypenguin]

snip
-Oh really... This almost makes me want to come back. After the Cata 'Yea heals cost real mana now' change I wasn't haveing much fun as a healer.
--Is it back to the point where a geared shaman/druid/priest can just run and Hot/Shield without dying? Because last I tried in my welfare pve epics I got burned down even before I could run myself out of mana (which would have taken <30 seconds).

The Talent swap is what really has me loathing the idea of purchasing MoP. I'll wait for some reviews to hear if it's as bad as I imagine.

Yeah unless there is a reduce healing buff and you get stunlocked/silenced with 2-3 on you its pretty each to live.

My resto shammy i go earth shield riptide and thats usually good enough where I don't have to keep throwing greater healing wave on myself. And mana is definitely not a problem now I healed a flag carrier and myself from 1 stack to 8 with a rogue warrior and disc priest on us the whole time and I didn't have to use mana tide or water shield. Mana burn is also gone.

Resto druids seem to be ungodly in the few bgs I played. My holy priest doesn't seem to heal as much though.

 

[The Great JT]

I miss auras. COME BACK TO ME, SANCTITY AURA!!

Okay, seriously (more seriously, anyway), I'm loving the changes, especially the new warlock demons, removal of ranged weapons and cosmetic glyphs. It's so good to have Seal of Truth Blood back, and I love the druid Caster-Surrounded-By-Stars glyph for Moonkin Form.

 

[Baldr]

I'm sad, spriest and no longer easy dot and refresh play-style. Only down to two normal dots now and play like a mage. I'm thinking of playing a monk anyways. I still love the new content I tried out in Beta.

 

[The Lugz]

i decided in my infinite stupidity to check this pre patch out, and it's horrendous
i've played it for about 10 minutes because it bugs out and dumps me to the loading screen
well done bliz, well done
now i cant log in at all

 

[Kitty4President]

The only real problem I have with the patch is that it released a week after I finally got the polearm I wanted for my Hunter from Dragon Soul, and now she can't use it. :U

Other than that, liking this new patch so far.

 

[anthony87]

Eh, there's a few things I've found to be interesting on my Balance Druid. I've got an ability know that basically lets me put myself into a Solar or Lunar phase whenever I like, they've made Sunfire and Moonfire into two separate abilities at first which I thought was odd but now it means that the DoT effects are also separate which makes up for the removal of Insect Swarm and the Shooting Stars buff now seems to kick in more often which means more Starsurge attacks.

I can't use as many healing abilities in my Balance spec as I could before which is a shame but I still get the combat ress. They've taken out a few glyphs that were really useful but the new ones are also pretty damn good. All in all, I'm happy. Just annoyed that my macros are all messed up for some reason.

Now I wonder how many people who read that will actually know what the hell I'm talking about...

 

[Twilight_guy]

'Most discussed', in other words, most flamed. WoW fans don't discuss they rage. Praise for them is only saying Blizzard's design decision suck a little bit. Honestly I don't know how Blizzard gets any useful information out of its fans. Its so rare to see the their fans say anything nice I'm surprised they get anything done.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

wait, no more minimum distance for ranged weapons?
well, that won't be a balance issue at all!

They're losing their melee weapons, so why not?

Don't worry, Hunters will still have their ringpieces pulled out by Swifty on a daily basis, then he'll show everyone else how to do it.

why not? because not being able to use them within melee range is supposed to be the one flaw of a ranged weapon.
the only way to make this balanced is to make the shots less useful or effective, which is just no fun at all.

 

[Dogstile]

wait, wait, wait, what happened to raptor strike, or dual wielding hunters?

what did I miss in my absense, has the world gone mad in the meantime?!

Well, how long have you been gone?

Blizzard finally decided to make it abundantly clear that Hunters should not be meleeing, by removing their ability to use melee weapons.

Wait really?

Goddamn its been a while since I played. I was a survival spec polearm using hunter that could toy with any melee class in PVP. I stopped playing once they added all the bullshit instant stun abilities, but damn was it fun while it lasted. Can hunters not use any melee weapons at all now?

 

[Kitty4President]

Wait really?

Goddamn its been a while since I played. I was a survival spec polearm using hunter that could toy with any melee class in PVP. I stopped playing once they added all the bullshit instant stun abilities, but damn was it fun while it lasted. Can hunters not use any melee weapons at all now?

They can still use them, but you are required to manually switch your bow with your weapon in your inventory, as they now use the exact same weapon slot.

 

[Jaeke]

Oh yeah! I forgot about the panda thing.
Good thing I jumped ship a year ago, but don't get me wrong, it was a painful jump.

Really at this point, all I see is a dead-horse that's just beating itself.

 

[Jaeke]

Eh, there's a few things I've found to be interesting on my Balance Druid. I've got an ability know that basically lets me put myself into a Solar or Lunar phase whenever I like, they've made Sunfire and Moonfire into two separate abilities at first which I thought was odd but now it means that the DoT effects are also separate which makes up for the removal of Insect Swarm and the Shooting Stars buff now seems to kick in more often which means more Starsurge attacks.

I can't use as many healing abilities in my Balance spec as I could before which is a shame but I still get the combat ress. They've taken out a few glyphs that were really useful but the new ones are also pretty damn good. All in all, I'm happy. Just annoyed that my macros are all messed up for some reason.

Now I wonder how many people who read that will actually know what the hell I'm talking about...

[sub][sub]I gotchya[/sub][/sub]

When I stopped I think my main was my Resto-Druid... but damn, NO healing abilities in balance at all?? Not just owlkin? AND they got rid of Shooting Stars?? That sounds like it would have ruined PvP for me.

 

[Jaeke]

wait, no more minimum distance for ranged weapons?
well, that won't be a balance issue at all!

Seriously, this.

In my time in WoW I played a hunttarder and I'll tell you, I felt overpowered with just a pet and ranged weapon, but giving that weapon unlimited distance and allowing you to turn that tiger into a tank?

Yeah... a shit storm is gonna be had with that.

MINIMUM distance, man.

Before, if you got up into a Hunter's face, they started hitting you with their weak-arse statstick.
But Hunters don't do that now, they just shoot you in the face from three inches away.

They still have a maximum range.

I miss the old days where they would whip out dual swords on my ass

I certainly don't
Unless I had a healer behind me.

 

[DracoSuave]

now they're no longer at a disadvantage up close, range is no longer an issue except for being too far away.

Their primary form of resource charging is an ability with a cast time. Every melee class how has an interrupt and they usually lock the target out of a school.

Interrupt their steady shot and they're not doing anything but autoattacking for a while.


The change is a much needed balance issue for PvE, where often fights would be designed where stacking the raid in a spot is necessary to survive certain mechanics. If the hunter had to be a certain distance away to do damage, then fights where stacking in melee is necessary (Domo, for example) either can't be done by hunters or require special programming by the boss to counteract it.

 

[RJ 17]

It'll be weird once this game finally goes the way of EverCrack...err...I mean Quest.

Edit: By that I mean it's just weird to think of a world without WoW sucking away people's souls. Seriously, how are people still playing that game? They've officially killed off all the major villains in the lore...so now they're sending the players to play with the pandas...a thought that originated as an April Fools joke a few years back.

 

[Charli]

Loolololol Shockadin is viable. TASTE HOLY SHOCK BATTLE-GROUNDERS, YOU CANNOT WIN.



....Yeah holy paladins are due a nerf. '-'

 

[anthony87]

Eh, there's a few things I've found to be interesting on my Balance Druid. I've got an ability know that basically lets me put myself into a Solar or Lunar phase whenever I like, they've made Sunfire and Moonfire into two separate abilities at first which I thought was odd but now it means that the DoT effects are also separate which makes up for the removal of Insect Swarm and the Shooting Stars buff now seems to kick in more often which means more Starsurge attacks.

I can't use as many healing abilities in my Balance spec as I could before which is a shame but I still get the combat ress. They've taken out a few glyphs that were really useful but the new ones are also pretty damn good. All in all, I'm happy. Just annoyed that my macros are all messed up for some reason.

Now I wonder how many people who read that will actually know what the hell I'm talking about...

[sub][sub]I gotchya[/sub][/sub]

When I stopped I think my main was my Resto-Druid... but damn, NO healing abilities in balance at all?? Not just owlkin? AND they got rid of Shooting Stars?? That sounds like it would have ruined PvP for me.

Well I've still got Healing Touch and Rejuvination but that's about it, which is unfortunate because I was quite partial to Lifebloom. There's also a new talent that gives you an instant cast heal that restores 30% of your hp in any form.

I've still got Shooting Stars, in fact it kicks in so often now that I can't fire off enough Starsurges in time. I was in a dungeon just before typing this reply and I used a Starsurge along with two new buffs that they brought in with the new talent system and I hit the boss for 353,000 hp. I honestly didn't know you could hit that hard.

 

[Jaeke]

Eh, there's a few things I've found to be interesting on my Balance Druid. I've got an ability know that basically lets me put myself into a Solar or Lunar phase whenever I like, they've made Sunfire and Moonfire into two separate abilities at first which I thought was odd but now it means that the DoT effects are also separate which makes up for the removal of Insect Swarm and the Shooting Stars buff now seems to kick in more often which means more Starsurge attacks.

I can't use as many healing abilities in my Balance spec as I could before which is a shame but I still get the combat ress. They've taken out a few glyphs that were really useful but the new ones are also pretty damn good. All in all, I'm happy. Just annoyed that my macros are all messed up for some reason.

Now I wonder how many people who read that will actually know what the hell I'm talking about...

[sub][sub]I gotchya[/sub][/sub]

When I stopped I think my main was my Resto-Druid... but damn, NO healing abilities in balance at all?? Not just owlkin? AND they got rid of Shooting Stars?? That sounds like it would have ruined PvP for me.

Well I've still got Healing Touch and Rejuvination but that's about it, which is unfortunate because I was quite partial to Lifebloom. There's also a new talent that gives you an instant cast heal that restores 30% of your hp in any form.

I've still got Shooting Stars, in fact it kicks in so often now that I can't fire off enough Starsurges in time. I was in a dungeon just before typing this reply and I used a Starsurge along with two new buffs that they brought in with the new talent system and I hit the boss for 353,000 hp. I honestly didn't know you could hit that hard.

Damn, sounds like Druids finally got some well needed attention, hopefully it actually last through that expansion launch.