With the new patch 5.2: The Thunder King, in addition to some major changes to PvP mode, a new raid, a new quest hub, and a mysterious island full of dinosaurs, there are also some changes for classes.
The changes in the classes are not minor, and each modification is made only after a great exchange of opinions with the players, a thorough study of the developers and a rigorous analysis. We also take into account that, although the changes in the classes help to keep the game fresh, they also mean relearning things about the characters that the players thought they already knew. We want this adaptation process to be as clear, understandable, and easy as possible in light of the upcoming 5.2 patch, so I will be working with World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street to do a series of short blogs that They will provide an overview of the important changes for each class.
Several of the 5.2 patch notes cover two main categories: balance tweaks and talent tweaks. Unless we state a specific reason, you can assume that the + 10% or -10% adjustments you'll see in the patch notes were made to keep all specs where we want them to be in 5.2. In some cases, these are changes that reflect the different environment from version 5.2 with new gear and bonuses. In other cases, we are fixing bugs that we found in patch 5.1.
When it comes to talent adjustments, while we are generally satisfied with the adjustments in Mists of Pandaria, we acknowledge that there were some talents that weren't well balanced or just plain unattractive. It's not that all players have to use all talents all the time; some are attractive only in some situations, and that's okay. On the other hand, some talents are rarely used, and we would like players to have opportunities to use all of them.
Note: The intent of these blogs is primarily to give a general idea of the reasons behind the design changes in 5.2 and not to detail the entire process behind each note. If you want specific information about the changes and the numbers, you can consult the patch notes.
Death Knight
We had three main goals:
- Make some of the less attractive talents more captivating.
- Improve the quality of life of the Unholy Death Knights.
- Grant a small buff for PvP.
We didn't think the Death Knights needed a lot of changes in general and we tried not to make changes to classes for the sake of making changes, especially in the middle of an expansion, so you will see less changes here compared to other classes.
To fix some issues with unattractive talents, you'll see improvements to Deadly Siphon (deals more damage) and Conversion (less recurring Runic Power).
The Unholy quality of life changes were made primarily to address the issue of "orphan" runes. For example, a CdlM uses Blood Boil twice and then Plague Strike, subtracting two Frost Runes, which are not enough to use Festering Strike. Frost Touch now activates Reaping, which lets those two Frost Runes turn into Runes of Death. Additionally, we made Plague Strike apply Frost Rush to reduce the need to use Icy Touches. We also made Summon Gargoyle cost no Runic Power and changed the damage dealt for both Shadows and Nature to work better with the Unholy Mastery, Dread Blade.
While we consider the Death Knights to be in a good position in PvP, we do agree that Strangle has a very long cooldown for what it does, so we cut it down alongside Choke. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the two-piece tier 14 bonus was too good and we were concerned that it would be the only thing the CoMs would use in the 5.2 raid; therefore, we reduce the set bonus, but improve the class. Blood is in a good place, but we did upgrade Blood Parasite for the simple fact that it wasn't very powerful.
Druid
In the case of the Druids, we wanted:
- Make some less attractive talents more captivating.
- Slightly reduce the effectiveness of Feral Druids in PvP.
- Improve the Restoration specialization in PvP and PvE.
- Slightly increase healing for non-Restoration Druids in PvP.
In the case of Druids, we had the issue that some talents were only attractive to some specs. Some changes, such as the Cenarius Ward and Force of Nature buff, were made to help resolve this issue, while other talents, such as Mass Entanglement, were simply too low.
Fixed issues with the Feral in PvP with the addition of a cooldown to Cyclone. Ferals will now be unable to cast such frequent Cyclones with Predator Swiftness, but can still benefit from the proc to heal We initially tried several different mechanics to prevent Cat Form from accumulating speed buffs to a ridiculous level, but that caused druids to feel penalized for taking Feline Swiftness (which many didn't even take, not even in PvP). The result was that Feline Swiftness does not stack with the PvP set bonus. We are monitoring Feral damage in PvP, but we made no changes to this in 5.2.
Restoration benefits include a general improvement towards his healing potency, as well as mana improvements in Rejuvenation. We felt that some Restoration issues were caused by the fact that the Discipline Priests were so overbearing (due to the shields absorbing effect being better at mitigating damage than periodic heals), but we still wanted to ensure that Druids are competitive healers, so we increased their healing by 10% through the Passive talent: Naturalist. Rejuvenation is an iconic Restoration spell; While we don't want Druids to only use Rejuvenation on a constant basis, we don't consider it to be of much use. Wild Mushroom redesigned to benefit from the “overhealing” that can occur with periodic heals. Now, the new mushrooms give Druids a way to save that healing, then unleash it when the mushrooms bloom.
Balance and Feral should see their healing increase in PvP as we're making their healing benefit 25% of their PvP Power (compared to 50% for Restoration druids).
Hunters
Hunters are generally well positioned in PvE and PvP. We wanted:
- Make some unattractive talents more captivating (notice the coincidence?)
- Improve Marksmanship viability.
Like the Death Knights, the Hunters were also in a good position and we didn't think they needed a lot of changes. The result is these short notes.
For talents, we found Silencing Shot to be too powerful, so we've slightly increased its cooldown and removed Focus costs from competing talents: Binding Shot and Wyvern Sting. We also acknowledge the community's frustration with Power Shot, so we tweaked it to be reliable against moving targets.
Aimed Shot cast time reduced as a quality of life change for Aim Hunters, and in part to improve specialization damage. We've also increased Chimera Shot's healing to give Marksmanship Hunters a badge from Survival and Beast Masteries.
Almost all Hunters felt they had to take the Marked Glyph to die, so we set it as a benchmark, removed the glyph, and replaced it with the new Glyph of Release, which provides moderate healing when using Separation.