MoP: War: is it really? Or is it fake?

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 PTR Notes - Feb 19 Update

General
New Daily Quest Hub: Isle of Thunder.
Heroes fortunate enough to acquire a “Key to the Palace of Lei Shen” can bring it to the Shado-Pan on the Isle of Thunder and use it to infiltrate the fabled treasure vaults of the first emperor. Heroes are tasked with grabbing as much loot as they can within five minutes. Larger chests will have the most loot, including special keys that can be used at the end of the run for a chance at epic gear and other major rewards. Keys are awarded from rare mobs, hidden chests around the island, and from award satchels obtained by completing daily quests.

Taking Over The Farm
Players that have grown attached to working the land at Sunsong Ranch can now acquire purchase the farm land from Farmer Yoon via a quest. The farmhouse becomes a rest point like an Inn, where the player can bind and instantly log out. Work orders will pour into the farm from factions across Pandaria, and completing a work order will earn a reputation boost with the issuing faction.
The option to take over the farm is available to characters that are exalted with the Tillers and have unlocked all 16 farm plots.

Classes
Mage (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Glyph of Evocation now causes the Invocation talent to restore 10% (was 20%) health after completing an Evocation.
Arcane
Arcane Blast damage has been reduced by 22.2% and mana cost has been increased to 1.66667% of base mana (was 1.5%).
Arcane Missile's damage has been reduced by 22.2%.
Arcane Barrage damage has been reduced by 13.6%.
Frost
Frostbolt now deals 52% more damage, but its debuff no longer increases subsequent Frostbolt damage.

Monk (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Chi Wave now does 100% more damage and 14% less healing, and no longer costs Chi, and has a 15 second cooldown.
Zen Sphere now has a limit of 2 (was 1), detonates when either the recipient reaches 35% health or the Zen Sphere is dispelled, no longer costs Chi, and has a 10 second cooldown. Its periodic damage has been increased by 22%, periodic healing has been reduced by 61%, its detonation healing has been reduced by 62%, and detonation range has been increased by 40%.
Chi Burst now does 340% more damage and 69% more healing, no longer costs Chi, and has a 30 second cooldown.
Mistweaver
Jab now costs 6% (was 4%) of base mana to use.
The Glyphed version of Uplift now costs 8% of base mana (was 6.6%) to cast.
Teachings of the Monastery now provides additional benefits.
Tiger Palm damage increased by 100%. and restores 1% of max mana.
Muscle Memory is a new passive ability for Mistweaver Monks. Successful Jab and Spinning Crane Kick which damages at least 3 enemies cause Muscle Memory. Muscle Memory causes the Monk's next Tiger Palm or Blackout Kick to deal 150% more damage and restore 2% mana.

Paladin (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Retribution
Seal of Justice now causes melee attacks to deal an additional 20% (was 16%) as Holy damage.
Retribution 2-piece PvP set bonus now grants 1000 PvP power (was 800).
Retribution 4-piece PvP set bonus had been replaced. It now decreases the cooldown on Avenging Wrath by 65 seconds.

Priest (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Power Word: Solace has been replaced with a new talent: Solace & Insanity
For Holy and Discipline, Power Word: Solace replaces Holy Fire. It deals the same damage, and interacts with other spells and abilities in the same manner but does not trigger Atonement, is instant, costs no mana, and restores 1% of maximum mana on each cast. Damage dealt by Power Word: Solace will heal a nearby friendly player within 40 yards of the target for 100% of the damage dealt (50% when healing the Priest).
Power Infusion now increases the Priest's damage by 10% in addition to current effects.
Discipline
Mastery: Shield Discipline now also increases all healing done by a lesser amount, but the bonus provided by Mastery has been reduced by 36%.
Penance now has a range of 40 yards for both friendly and hostile targets (was 40 yards for friendly and 30 yards for hostile targets).
Spirit Shell now provides an absorb shield equal to the average healing and absorb of the triggering spell, including criticals and Divine Aegis.
Divine Aegis now causes critical heals to apply an absorb shield on the target for 100% of the amount healed instead of healing for twice as much. In addition, it grants Power Word: Shield a chance equal to the Priest's critical chance for the shield to absorb twice as much damage.

[chaos5061]

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Lava Burst base damage has been reduced by 33% but now always deals a critical strike. When cast on targets affected by Flame Shock, it now deals 50% more damage.
Ancestral Guidance now copies 60% (was 40%) of the amount healed.
Conductivity now shares 30% (was 20%) of the healing received from Healing Wave, Greater Healing Wave, or Healing Surge.

Warrior (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator)
Arms
Overpower now costs 10 rage and reduces Mortal Strike remaining cooldown by 0.5 seconds.
Sudden Death now has a 25% chance to activate from Overpower instead of a 10% (was 20%) chance to activate from auto attacks or Opportunity Strike. In addition, using Execute makes Overpower free for 10 seconds.

Creatures
Players of the same faction that participated in a fight with Pandaria world bosses (Sha of Anger, Galleon, Nalak the Storm Lord, and Oondasta) now get shared credit for the kill and will be eligible for loot.

Raids, Dungeons and Scenarios
Satchels obtained via the Raid Finder now have a chance to contain additional rewards, including: consumables, Spirits of Harmony, rare pets or mounts, and Raid Finder versions of Normal and Heroic difficulty zone drops that were previously unavailable from Raid Finder encounters!
Mogu Runes of Fate have been added and provides a bonus roll for Throne of Thunder, Nalak the Storm Lord, and Oondasta and are purchased with Lesser Charms of Good Fortune. Elder Charms of Good Fortune will continue to work in Mogu'shan Vaults, Heart of Fear, Terrace of Endless Spring, the Sha of Anger, and Salyis' Warband (Galleon).
The maximum number of Elder Charms of Good Fortune a character can hold has been increased to 20 (was 10).

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 - Isle of Thunder Faction Quartermaster Update
The cloaks offered by the Kirin Tor Offensive and Sunreaver Onslaught were added to quartermasters in the latest PTR build. The cloaks cost 937 Valor Points and only some are flagged as needing Revered currently, but will likely change to all of them.

496	Back	Tank	Back	Cloak of the Immortal Guardian
496	Back	Tank	Back	Cloak of the Immortal Guardian
496	Back	Melee	Back	Shan'ze Partisan's Greatcloak
496	Back	Melee	Back	Shan'ze Partisan's Greatcloak
496	Back	Spell Spirit	Back	Shan'ze Gravetender Cloak
496	Back	Spell Spirit	Back	Shan'ze Gravetender Cloak
496	Back	Physical DPS	Back	Thunder-Chaser Cloak
496	Back	Physical DPS	Back	Thunder-Chaser Cloak
496	Back	Spell DPS	Back	Static-Collecting Cloak
496	Back	Spell DPS	Back	Static-Collecting Cloak

[chaos5061]

A Day on the Isle of Thunder
Crithto wrote a nice blog post about what you can expect when Patch 5.2 is live. It covers some of these things:

• Sunsong Ranch improvements
• Work Orders for reputation
• Isle of Thunder Progression - (Stage 2 / Stage 3)
• Direhorn Mount
• Troves of the Thunder King
• New Raid Finder gear

[chaos5061]

Legendary Meta-gems
In order to further discourage the use of these in PvP, the effects are dispellable. Not all of them are Spell Steal-able because frankly some of the effects are too complex to work correctly when stolen.

In order to provide feedback on potential changes to rotational priority or damage modeling, please confirm these estimated new values, or provide the accurate value in their place:
Sure. Here are the correct values. Flat amounts are the values at level 90, as you’d expect.

Howling Blast: 575 + 85.1% of Attack Power
Frost Strike (motfw): 126% Weapon Damage
Obliterate (motfw): 386.4% weapon damage, +25% w/ two disease
Scourge Strike: 633 + 140% Weapon Damage, 25% shadow damage per disease
Diseases: 187(FF)/223(BP) + 17.9% AP
Diseases (Unholy): 299.2(FF)/356.8(BP) + 28.64% AP
Soul Reaper (motfw): 120% weapon damage

…based on modeling I've done (with assistance from Theck and Hamlet), [Gaze of the Twins is] actually a Guardian's best trinket for Rage Generation.
Gaze of the Twins will only proc for Str users.

Thoughts on an Unholy Death Knight using Unerring Vision of Lei-Shen and using Festering Strike to maintain these 100% crit chance diseases permanently?
Unerring Vision of Lei-Shen will only proc for Int users.

The first the comes to mind is on the mage class. In frost spec, taking the rune of power talent, I noticed that the frost pet's waterbolt apparently is double dipping from Rune of Power. The first effect (reasonably) comes from the mage at 15%. But, it has another multiplicative 15% on top of that.
We’re not seeing this. Are you perhaps seeing the result of the Frostbolt debuff?

Rune of Re-Origination
We're going to make some changes to this trinket based on testing and feedback. Our goal was to make it decent if you didn't game it at all but offer some opportunities for enhanced benefits if you did. We're going to try to meet that goal better with these changes:

10 sec duration (down from 20 sec) but with double the proc rate.
Increase your highest secondary stat by 200% of the sum of your two lowest secondary stats. For example: you have 3500 mastery, 5000 crit, 7000 haste. Rune procs, and you get [-3500 mastery, -5000 crit, +17000 haste]. Same logic as before, just double the size of the buff to your highest stat.

Forgive me for saying this....we are high right now? Locks/mages are topping meters and all I see is + + + + + + for them. If you go to raid-bots (shows what people are actually doing with the classes), click on any fight other than Galaron....look at who is on to....mages and locks (speaking 25 heroic).

We did not ask for a buff to haste.

I work for a software company, so I understand you have tools to see things that we don't. But don't friggin cop out and say things like "you are higher than you should be now"
Arcane and Affliction are high on many fights in 5.1, but they shouldn't be in 5.2. It's almost always the wrong argument to compare yourself to the highest DPS specs out there. "Middle of the pack" is actually where everyone is supposed to be.

Also, many warriors did ask for a buff to haste. Feel free to bring it up with them.

I try to always be careful to say "X is where or not where *we* want it." I say that because we pick the target DPS for everyone, not the community. We find that when we phrase it that way, players spend less time (though still a lot) campaigning for DPS buffs.

[chaos5061]

As someone who's main-specced Beast Mastery through most of his hunter career, these adjustments concern me about the implications for spec balance. Rough estimate, this seems like it's about a 5% adjustment upwards for Survival, and closer to 10% adjustment upwards for Marksman (maybe more if the rotation changes from 5.1 to favour Aimed Shot more).
This is why I added the caveat that you can't just take the 5.1 environment and mentally add buffs or nerfs. My advice here if you can't test it yourself on the PTR is to trust your theorycrafting community and see where they think everyone will end up in 5.2. (Zeherah made a post up above.)

I believe he's saying the damage buffs for pve will harm pvp, as a lot of ptr feedback was already very worried about very high burst and sustained damage ( people being gibbed in a few globals constantly) in pvp in full tyrannical gear with resil gems.
But that's a vague answer. That's not anything I can discuss with my design team. What would be more helpful are as many specifics as possible. What are you worried about from Shadow priests or Frost DKs? Mind Spike? Obliterate? Dots? We can go look at those specific cases where there are concerns. We don't think it's appropriate just to nerf everyone's PvP damage by 15% or something just in case.

GC we've still yet to get a clear cut answer on whether or not Lava Burst will scale (i know you hate that word, sorry) with crit rating (IE More crit chance = higher damage like Soul Fire/Chaos Bolt). Also, Bombay or Tanka Rey?
You used the word correctly, so no worries. What makes me reach for the Bombay are vague concerns about "scaling issues" masquerading DPS buff requests. (If you're worried about your DPS, just be up front and say you're worried about your DPS.)

We are unlikely to add extra crit damage to Lava Burst given the amount of time we have left for testing because we don't feel we can accurately predict what it would do to gear or rotational choices, and there is a PvP burst risk as well. We're not against the idea in theory and might try it at a future date once we have more information about what the 5.2 changes do to Elemental overall.

I also bet you did not test both Titan's Grip and SMF, since both do substantially different in Raids.
We treat SMF and TG (and also DW and 2H Frost) as separate specs for purposes of our testing. Nowhere do we see Execute anywhere close to the percentage of damage you're suggesting.

That said, several warriors have asked us to nerf Execute instead of the numbers we did hit. We might still do that, but Execute damage is a scary thing to mess with at this stage because it can cause relatively-hard-to-predict changes to priorities and damage between TG and SMF. We'll consider it though.

The fact that the reason behind the nerf was totally false.
You're conflating two issues. Stampede had a bug causing it to do too much damage, which we eventually found and fixed. At the same time, we also wanted to tone down all of the "because I'm immune to everything I'm going to come beat your face in" cooldowns. We deeply regret having so many "I'm immune to everything" mechanics. We don't think they are good for PvP overall, even though it can be fun to beat someone's face in while they have no recourse.

Anything uncounterable is probably something we are trying to phase out in PvP.

Blizzard seems to be unable to admit that having Sanctity of Battle as baseline for Paladins was a mistake.
Sorry, we just don't think it was a mistake. If you go back and look at a lot of the feedback about haste for paladins, many players like how haste feels. They like how well it ties into their active mitigation. We don't think there was any mistake here. We just have to make sure (long-term) that avoidance still has some role for tanks. We reduced the proc chance of Grand Crusader because we also allowed it to be caused from dodge and parry, which helps to make those stats somewhat more attractive.

There are numerous, serious issues with multiple different healer specs/classes. All of them are essentially being brushed under the rug so 5.2 can go live on schedule.
If we, the developers, though there were numerous, serious issues with multiple specs, we would delay the patch. We are fortunately in a position where we can do that and we do it all the time (heck, with almost every product we release). There are some players out there with concerns, and that is their prerogative, but it's also pretty par for the course for any of our major patches or expansions. We think things are pretty close.

with buffs to warriors/dks/rogues I only see the gap between us and other melee getting even larger.
We need evidence to evaluate claims like that. Unfortunately, as I've said, 5.1 evidence isn't super useful at this point.

If they make our cooldowns lower, damage without cooldowns becomes less of a concern
Yep. There is nothing inherently stronger about sustained damage than burst damage, provided the end result is the same (and often the opposite is true). There are encounter specifics that throw that out of kilter, such as the frequency of burst windows and the length of the fight, but in general we like those complexities because they help prevent every class from behaving exactly the same way. When CDs are too long, then the risk of things getting out of kilter are increased - consider the example of a 10 minute cooldown, that will rarely ever get used more than once per fight. We think a 2 min CD solves the problem sufficiently. Your DPS at any given second won't be the same as everyone else's -- this is a good thing -- but integrated over the course of a fight it will be close, again taking into consideration that we like variation among encounters.

[chaos5061]

Even including the 4-piece T15 bonus and boosted stats, I'm simming that 2/2 upgraded T14 gear is outperforming T15 gear of equivalent difficulty levels because of the reduced CD on an incredibly buffed Penance. This is an issue.
We have considered nerfing the priest T14 set bonus to 1 sec off of Penance (under the argument that Penance is more powerful now) and just reducing Penance by 1 sec baseline. That undoes a little bit of the first part of my argument, but Penance is a fun spell and a single-target one at that.

Tiriél is also correct that partially it's just a comparison between upgraded heroic 5.0 gear and normal 5.2 gear ilevels.

No. I can reproduce this consistently (100% of the time) on the live server. Steps to reproduce (at least on live, I will verify whether this still exists on PTR)
Okay, that sounds like it is just the tooltip and not the damage itself, but we'll still check it out. Tooltips can only be so accurate since so many things affect spell points these days.

[chaos5061]

Monday, February 25
Horridon - 25 Player Normal - 11:00 PST (14:00 EST, 20:00 CET)
Iron Qon - 25 Player Normal - 13:30 PST (16:30 EST, 22:30 CET)
Twin Consorts - 25 Player Normal - 15:00 PST (18:00 EST, 00:00 CET)
Lei Shen - 25 Player Normal - 16:30 PST (19:30 EST, 01:30 CET)

As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.

[chaos5061]

Patch 5.2 PTR - Build 16618
Build 16618 will be deployed to the PTR realms soon.

Armored Skyscreamer
The blue version of the Armored Skyscreamer is now the Glory of the Thundering Raider reward.

[chaos5061]

Dungeons & Raids

• Glory of the Thundering Raider now rewards an Armored Skyscreamer.

[chaos5061]

New Thunderforged Items
Lots of Thunderforged items have shown up over the past few days! Please note that this is not every Thunderforged item, many are still missing. The item level 496 cloaksfrom the previous build are now all epic and correctly set to Revered reputation required.

528	Trinket		Trinket	Spark of Zandalar
528	Trinket		Trinket	Primordius' Talisman of Rage
528	Finger	Tank	Finger	Jin'rokh's Soulcrystal
528	Neck	Melee	Neck	Amulet of the Primal Turtle
528	Finger	Melee	Finger	Band of the Scaled Tyrant
528	Neck	Spell Spirit	Neck	Horridon's Tusk Fragment
528	Finger	Spell Spirit	Finger	Petrified Eye of the Basilisk
528	Trinket	Spell Spirit	Trinket	Stolen Relic of Zuldazar
528	Neck	Physical DPS	Neck	Talisman of Living Poison
528	Finger	Physical DPS	Finger	Sign of the Bloodied God
528	Finger	Physical DPS	Finger	Gore-Soaked Gear
528	Trinket	Physical DPS	Trinket	Renataki's Soul Charm
528	Trinket	Physical DPS	Trinket	Talisman of Bloodlust
528	Finger	Spell DPS	Finger	Jin'rokh's Dreamshard
528	Trinket	Spell DPS	Trinket	Horridon's Last Gasp
528	Back	Tank	Back	Beakbreaker Greatcloak
528	Back	Melee	Back	Hydra-Scale Bloodcloak
528	Back	Melee	Back	Horn-Rimmed Doomcloak

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528	Cloth	Spell Spirit	Head	Stonegaze Hood
528	Cloth	Spell Spirit	Chest	Robes of Static Bursts
528	Cloth	Spell Spirit	Legs	Leggings of Ebon Veins
528	Cloth	Spell Spirit	Wrists	Vaccinator's Armwraps
528	Cloth	Spell Spirit	Hands	Helix-Breaker Gloves
528	Back	Spell Spirit	Back	Drape of Booming Nights
528	Back	Physical DPS	Back	Wastewalker's Sandblasted Drape
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Head	Flamecaster's Burning Crown
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Shoulders	Fissure-Split Shoulderwraps
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Chest	Robes of Mutagenic Blood
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Legs	Al'set's Tormented Leggings
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Wrists	Azure Shell Bracers
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Wrists	Bracers of Fragile Bone
528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Hands	Crystal-Claw Gloves

[chaos5061]

528	Cloth	Spell DPS	Hands	Lightningweaver Gauntlets
528	Back	Spell DPS	Back	Shimmershell Cape
528	Leather	Spell Spirit	Shoulders	Spaulders of Dinomancy
528	Leather	Spell Spirit	Chest	Robes of Concussive Shocks
528	Leather	Spell Spirit	Legs	Leggings of the Malformed Sapling
528	Leather	Spell Spirit	Wrists	Vampire Bat-Hide Bracers
528	Leather	Spell Spirit	Wrists	Infinitely Conducting Bracers
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Head	Lightning-Eye Hood
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Shoulders	Forgotten Mantle of the Moon
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Chest	Rockfall Ribwraps
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Legs	Crimson Bloom Legguards
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Wrists	Bindings of Multiplicative Strikes
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Hands	Gloves of Cushioned Air
528	Leather	Physical DPS	Hands	Grips of Vampiric Cruelty
528	Leather	Spell DPS	Legs	Roots of Rampaging Earth

[chaos5061]

528	Mail	Spell Spirit	Shoulders	Spaulders of Quaking Fear
528	Mail	Spell Spirit	Feet	Ghostbinder Greatboots
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Shoulders	Static-Shot Shoulderguards
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Chest	Sul'lithuz Sandmail
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Legs	Spearman's Jingling Leggings
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Feet	Quakestompers
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Wrists	Beady-Eye Bracers
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Wrists	Bracers of Mutagenic Fervor
528	Mail	Physical DPS	Hands	Synapse-String Handguards
528	Mail	Spell DPS	Head	Clear-Mind Helm
528	Mail	Spell DPS	Legs	Legguards of Scintillating Scales
528	Plate	Tank	Shoulders	Metabolically Boosted Shoulderplates
528	Plate	Tank	Legs	Black Blood Legplates
528	Plate	Tank	Wrists	Shell-Coated Wristplates
528	Plate	Melee	Shoulders	Shoulderguards of Centripetal Destruction
528	Plate	Melee	Chest	Chestplate of Violent Detonation
528	Plate	Melee	Waist	Cloudbreaker Greatbelt

[chaos5061]

528	Plate	Melee	Legs	Bloodlord's Bloodsoaked Legplates
528	Plate	Melee	Wrists	Frozen Warlord's Bracers
528	Plate	Melee	Wrists	Bracers of Constant Implosion
528	Plate	Melee	Wrists	Caustic Spike Bracers
528	Plate	Melee	Hands	Rein-Binder's Fists
528	Plate	Spell Spirit	Shoulders	Spaulders of Primordial Growth
528	Plate	Spell Spirit	Waist	Refreshing Abalone Girdle
528	Plate	Spell Spirit	Wrists	Bonemender Bracers
528	Plate	Spell Spirit	Hands	Tortos' Shellseizers
528	Plate	Spell DPS	Chest	Ionized Yojamban Carapace
528	Plate	Spell DPS	Wrists	Armplates of the Vanquished Abomination
528	Shield	Tank	Off Hand	Greatshield of the Gloaming
528	Shield	Spell Spirit	Off Hand	Tortos' Discarded Shell