This is the second part of the series in which Blizzard is discussing the changes that have been implemented in patch 5.2. Stay up-to-date on all class changes by checking the 5.2 patch notes and reading the other parts of this series.
Patch 5.2 Class Analysis: Part One (CoM, Druid, and Hunter)
We don't modify classes lightly; all changes only occur after getting a lot of player feedback and careful and thoughtful analysis by the developers. We also know that while class changes can help keep the game fresh, you may have to re-learn things about characters that you already thought you knew. We want to clarify this process; that is to say, make it more understandable and easier to adapt in the transition to patch 5.2, so I'll be working with World of Warcraft Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street to write a series of short articles that will give an overview of the important changes that are going to take place for each class.
Many 5.2 patch notes fall into two main categories: balance and talent tweaks. Unless we specify another reason, hopefully the various + 10% or -10% adjustments that you will see in the patch notes will be made to keep all specs where we want in 5.2. In some cases the changes reflect the difference in environment in 5.2 with new team and set bonuses. In other cases, we are fixing bugs that we found in patch 5.1.
Regarding talent adjustments, we can say that we are happy with the changes in the talents of Mists of Pandaria, but we recognize that there were some talents that were not as fine tuned as they should or that were simply not attractive. That is not to say that all talents must satisfy all players at all times; some talents are attractive depending on the situation, and we are content with that. On the other hand, there are those that are not used too much and we prefer to offer real options for each level of talents.
Note: The purpose of these articles is generally to give an overview of the goals behind the 5.2 design changes, not to detail the painstaking process behind each note. You can consult the patch notes if what you are looking for are changes and specific numbers.
We intend to achieve some goals with magicians:
- Despite several adjustments, Frost Mages are still too powerful in PvP, but not as competitive in PvE.
- The changes we made to Arcano in Patch 5.1 were out of line and now we need to make some adjustments.
- We wanted to make some unattractive talents a bit more attractive, but we were also dissatisfied with the wizard's talent tree.
There are some changes to Frost in PvP. First of all, the PvP set bonus only decreases the cooldown of Counterspell when it is used successfully to interrupt, not to silence. As we've said before, we think silences are too dominant in PvP, but we don't think Patch 5.2 is the right time to remove all of them, because we can't remove all instant heals in PvP as well. We like the Counter Spell change because it rewards skillful play. We've also changed the way Ring of Frost works with Presence of Mind. Rather than making Ring of Frost apply instantly, Presence of Mind only makes the cast time instant - Ring of Frost still has to arm for 2 seconds before freezing the poor unfortunates on it. Even more significant, we've redesigned the Glyph for Fire Blast to no longer allow it to detonate Frost Bomb whenever it wants; instead, it will require the player to do so at the right time. We're increasing Frost's performance in PvE via Frostbolt, which requires spell casting (meaning the wizard must stay still and risk Frost Block), and we've also applied a stacking debuff in order to to really maximize the damage.
There were two problems we wanted to fix with Arcano. The first was that we did not intend for Scorch to be an alternative to Arcane mages to avoid having to spend stacks of Arcane charges. Arcane is supposed to accumulate charges, but then drop them when the mana drain is too high, but Scorch allowed Arcane mages to avoid that cycle, causing their damage to increase. However, we also wanted to tweak a previous change where we increased Arcane charges to a maximum of 6 stacks. Dropping 6 stacks is painful because it takes a long time to collect them again, so in 5.2 we're reducing it to 4 stacks.
Scorching was a big design issue for us for other reasons as well. It's great to be able to launch something on the move, even if you lose global DPS. Many mages chose to Scorch for reasons other than the accumulation of Arcane charges mentioned above. At the same time, the talent tree also had an issue as Blazing Speed couldn't compete with Temporal Shield or Ice Barrier. We'd intended to place Blazing Speed as a defensive ability, but it's actually a mobility talent, and we think it makes more sense alongside Presence of Mind and Ice Floes, which also provide mobility in one form or another. Instead of replacing Blazing Speed with Scorch, we've simply given Scorch to the Fire mages, which also helps differentiate specs a bit more. Instead, Mages now have a new Talent: Flame Glow, a passive defensive option that absorbs damage from each hit, and fits the Temporal Shield and Ice Barrier theme.
Paladins are pretty solid overall. But still, we had a few issues to deal with:
- We wanted some talents that were unattractive to be more so.
- Holy was too dominant in PvP.
- Retribution did not perform as well in PvP.
We focused a lot on Holy Paladin performance in PvP for Mists of Pandaria, and it worked… too well. They now have offensive properties and several powerful heals. To bring them back to the proper level, we're making two changes: Blinding Light will now have a cast time, but only for Holy. We also changed a PvP gear bonus to affect Flash of Light instead of Word of Glory. Moving PvP healing to a spell with a cast time creates a disruption risk and also forces the paladin to pause at certain times. Trying to adjust rendering through balance changes is always a tricky business, 3v3 arena teams always need healers, so it's unlikely we'll see Retribution paladins become as plentiful as Holy ones. But still, we wanted to give Retribution paladins a little nudge. The main change in this case is the reduction of the cooldown of Vengeful Wrath to two minutes for Retribution only. Since this is an ability that raid paladins gain today through a set bonus, we've only made a basic change. We've also made Retribution Paladins' Flashes of Light stronger and allowed them to benefit more from converting PvP powers to healing. It makes sense that even DPS paladins have good healing potential, as long as Retribution still clearly performs the DPS role and doesn't fully embrace the healing role in PvP. Other minor benefits for Retribution include allowing them to benefit more from the Glyph of Blessed Life and the Templar's Verdict, as well as adding restraint to Hammer of Light. Protection has received a few changes as well, but we like the way it works overall. A minor change was to make Grand Crusader benefit from dodge and parry as well, so paladins benefit more from stats that were going to appear on tank gear anyway.
Priest
The priests underwent several changes to solve some problems:
- We wanted some talents that were unattractive to be more so.
- Discipline performed too well in PvE, but underperformed in PvP.
- Shadow was too good in PvP, but powerful in PvE, so we didn't want the debuffs to affect both environments.
We've debuted Wraith and Psychic Evil, two talents that all Shadow Priests chose (and to be fair, many other Priests too), and lowered their healing (but remember that we've compensated for that decline somewhat with the PvP power shift. to benefit healing). We didn't want to negatively affect Mass Dispel or other perks Shadow Priests provide, especially in PvP. We've also slightly reduced Shadow Burst using the Glyph of Mind Spike.
Discipline required more work. On the raids especially, the Discipline Priests were employing an effective but boring "rotation" that consisted almost exclusively of casting Prayer of Healing (guaranteed Divine Aegis) while wearing Spirit Cuirass during the cooldown. By doing so, they could prevent more damage than anyone else was capable of healing. Our first change was to make Spirit Shell no longer benefit from Mastery. When Spirit Cuirass absorbs 50% more than it would have healed, it becomes exclusively a button to be used on cooldown, whereas we prefer it to be used as a situation-dependent ability, used in cases where that absorbing is the most sensible option. We also wanted Discipline priests to use spells other than Prayer of Healing. As with Restoration Druids, we don't want Discipline Priests to just cast Power Word: Shield, but we want Power Word: Shield to be an important button in their arsenal, which was not the case in 5.1. To do this, we've lowered the cost of Power Word: Shield and now allowed critical strike chance, but we've also redesigned Divine Aegis so that the indiscriminate casting of Prayer of Healing isn't the answer for every situation. Divine Aegis now requires Prayer of Healing to be critical to trigger, but when triggered, it generates a bubble instead of doubling the healing (essentially, Discipline critics are 100% healing and 100% bubble, rather than 200% healing) . We also changed his Mastery to affect both healing and absorption, so Mastery wasn't just beneficial after a crit. Additionally, we've improved Penance, which is an iconic Discipline spell and a lot of fun to use. To address PvP Discipline issues, in addition to these changes (of which Power Word buffs: Shield and Penance will have the greatest effect), we've redesigned its set bonus to make Flash Heal less expensive, and we've made some spells non-dispellable. Usually we only do it as a last spring, but in this case it seemed like the right decision.
Holy Priests have undergone few modifications, although they will benefit from some of the talent changes. We think Holy is in the right place in PvE compared to other healers, but that they were so overwhelmed by Discipline that it made them less abundant. This may change as specializations fill different niches.