Class News for Tuesday Jan. 6th

More Hunter news in here than anything else but, considering that Hunters are getting some major changes (read rebalancing) in the next patch it makes sense. Druids are indeed going to have access to polearms now (the only time I have EVER seen a druid with a spear was in Diablo 2 character art for the druid class). Also take note that unholy DKs are taking another hit to their DPS via gargoyle nerfs, which is another justified nerf imo.

Death Knight
Dual Wield
There are talents that benefit DW more than 2H. We think that is more interesting than every talent always giving you the same benefit no matter what your gear choices. BCB, Killing Machine and Necrosis, among others, should benefit DW.

If DW is too strong now, as some players think, then these are talents we might change.

The most logical place to look for DW nerfs is Killing Machine.
Yeah, we agree with Sawney. A proc per minute on Killing Machine would nerf DW a little while making an expensive talent more attractive for 2H Frost.

We would also like to buff Necrosis a little since it just doesn’t pay for itself right now, but that could end up buffing DW too. (Source)

Gargoyle nerf
Mr. Gargoyle is overpowered. His damage will be going down. (Source)

Druid
Polearms trainable by druids in 3.0.8
We think this was a problem with the PTR build. Druids will be able to train and use polearms in the next patch (3.0.8 ). (Source)

Hunter
Aspects off the GCD
Initially we removed the GCD. Then the more we thought about it, what we were asking hunters to do was quickly swap aspects as needed (and more likely just macro them). We thought hunters had a lot of buttons to push already especially when melee get on you and instead just made a new aspect so you could get the benefits of both defense and ranged and wouldn’t have to swap as much. If you are just swapping to Viper, the cooldown doesn’t seem like a big imposition. (Source)

Steady shot changes in 3.0.8
I don’t think I ever said the nerfs are a bit much. Plenty of hunters may have said that. Steady Shot got a massive buff in LK when it started using ammo. We thought it was doing too much damage. If hunter damage is low, and I don’t really think it is going to be from the tests we’ve done and some of the raiding groups we’ve talked to, we’ll likely adjust hunters in other ways. (Source)

Patch 3.1 and hunters
I said: we think these changes will put all 3 specs close together for PvE dps rather than BM (or on the PTR Survival) being way out in front. I anticipated some players saying “Yeah but we won’t scale” because players often say that when they think nerfs are too severe (though I don’t mean to imply it isn’t a legit concern in general). I said we have a plan for that in the Ulduar patch (we hope) so how Steady Shot stacks up at some future date isn’t productive for you guys to worry about because by the time you get there the numbers will be pretty different. It would be like comparing LK’s Steady Shot to BC’s or to the hunter class before Steady existed.

Now I will say again that you should not interpret our telling you that we have some future plans for your class to mean that we think your class is just a quivering mess and needs to be totally rebuilt. We are always looking a few months ahead toward the next thing we want to work on. Car manufacturers release new models all the time and other companies announce expansions or future initiatives. That doesn’t mean their current models are utter failures. It just means they have an eye on the future. WoW isn’t the kind of game you ever finish designing. (Source)

Patch 3.1 and damage scaling
In our most recent testing BM and MM were neck and neck and Survival was probably a little high. We might tone down Explosive Shot before it goes out the door.

We think with these changes, hunter PvE damage will be in line with other dps classes. We’re not concerned about scaling at higher gear levels because we are changing hunter damage enough for 3.1 that we will have to rebalance them anyway.

[...] I mentioned Ulduar because I suspected hunters would say “Our dps may be okay now but it won’t scale.” That may be true, but we are planning making some other changes to hunters so we will have a chance to reevaluate scaling before Ulduar ships. We’re not ready to share these other change with you, in part because if we end up not going through with the changes players will be “sad” (which I use as a euphamism). Many of the changes we’re talking about are designed to make hunters more fun to play, so you shouldn’t be scared of them.

Blizzard has always had long term plans for every class and we still do. Perhaps we haven’t always been as forthcoming about those plans as I have been lately. But you shouldn’t interpret the fact that we have long term plans to mean that we think your class is horribly broken and shipped it in a horribly broken state. (Source)

Spirit and Cat DPS in 3.0.8
Here are the cat and scorpid numbers for anyone who wants to theorycraft them. These will be in the next patch (3.0.8 ) even though they were not on the PTR.

We also did fix several pet families not getting their correct stat adjustment: Wasps, Spirit Beasts, Rhinos and Silithids were affected I believe. Spirit Strike should work with Longevity now and has an initial damage component that can crit. Not sure why it wouldn’t work with Kill Command, but I’ll look into that.

Rank 6 Scorpid Poison - 20 base Nature damage per tick, ticks every 2 sec for 10 sec, 0.04 coefficient, 1 stack max
Rank 6 Rake – 29 base physical damage, plus 21 base damage per tick, ticks every 3 sec for 9 sec, 0.06 coefficient
Rank 6 Spirit Strike - 50 base Arcane damage, plus 50 damage per tick, ticks every 6 sec for 6 sec (it ticks twice), 0.049 coefficient

My comment about many hunters caring about what their pets look like was just that, not that 51 BM was intended to be a cosmetic talent point. If you just hate dinosaurs and core hounds, I’m not sure what more we can do in the short term, but show me other exotics than don’t stack up and perhaps we can adjust their numbers. Longer-term we’d like to explore just letting you be able to increase damage with the bonus talent points. (Source)