Sept. 11, 2008

Not that the title's important, of course

Ever changing Beta.

Spell casting and spell channeling pushback has been changed to the following: When casting a spell, the first and second hit will add .5 secs each to the cast time. All hits after the second will have no effect. When channeling a spell, the first and second hit reduces current duration by 25% of total duration each. All hits after the second have no effect.
All aspects now have a 1 second global cooldown, down from a 1.5 global cooldown.
Combat Experience (Marksmanship): Now grants 3/6% Agility, up from 1/2%.
Improved Arcane Shot (Marksmanship): Now increases the damage done by your Arcane Shot by 5/10/15%.
Improved Feign Death (Survival): This talent has been replaced with Survival Tactics.
Improved Hunter’s Mark (Marksmanship): Now a 3-point talent, and now increases the amount of attack power granted by your Hunter’s Mark ability by 10/20/30% and reduces the mana cost of your Hunter’s Mark ability by 33/66/100%.
New Talent – Survival Tactics (Survival): Reduces the chance your Feign Death ability and all trap spells will be resisted by 2/4%, and reduces the cooldown on your Disengage ability by 2/4sec.
Rapid Killing (Marksmanship): This will now proc off Chimera Shot, but no longer works with auto-shot.
Silencing Shot (Marksmanship): This spell will now interrupt the current spell being cast on the target and lock out that school for 3 sec if the target is immune to silence effects
Trueshot Aura – This aura is now raid-wide, and now increases all ranged and melee attack power by 10%. In addition, this spell now only has one rank. All other ranks have been removed.

Undocumented changes include Invigoration (50/100% chance to regen 1% mana), Cobra Strikes (effects 2 specials instead of 3), Aspect of the Viper (% of maximum mana based on base ranged weapon speed), Aspect Mastery (increases Aspect of the Monkey by 5% instead of 10% and increases Aspect of the Hawk by 30% instead of 30%), Improved Steady Shot (maximum rank now has a 15% chance to increase the damage of the next Chimera/Arcane/Aimed by 30% and reduce the mana cost of same by 5%), Kill Shot (200% weapon damage plus [30% of RAP + 400] damage), Hunting Party (lasts 15 seconds), Lock and Load (effects 1 Arcane Shot instead of 3) and T.N.T (increases the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 3/6/9% instead of 5/10/15%).

So what do the blues have to say? In regards to the Aspect of the Viper change:

Our intent was not really to reduce it’s power, but make it equally powerful for the guy in green gear vs the guy in epics. We’ll do some more tuning on it.

And about the overall changes made in this latest build:

The balance team did a sweep of the talents and made modifications they felt necessary to keep the talents and abilities in budget. We’ve since done a second pass of what they came up with (which you see in this build) and made further changes. Our latest changes are not in this build you have now.

Some of the changes will stay, some will be reverted, and some will be re-designed. Lock and Load was just too much burst with 3 charges, and the balance guys changed it to 1. We’re going to up it to 2. Also going to make it have a chance to proc from Sting periodic ticks rather than the initial hit.

It also looks like the pet talent trees are going to see some more work soon-ish, as Ghostcrawler has made some posts requesting specific feedback about the trees. However, we did get a few statements:

We originally implemented the Cunning pets with lower stats because we imagined their CC would be too good. But the cooldowns are reasonably long and the durations short enough that this may not be an issue. We’ll consider improving them to make up for the deficiency.

Sept. 5, 2008

Or do you just know everything?

A few new things for hunters in the latest patch but nothing that made it into the patch notes as far as I can tell. Core Hounds are now tameable (Ferocity tree), and that includes Kurken in Stillpine Hold on Azuremyst Isle. Their special is 'Lava Breath’ which does fire damage and reduces the target’s casting speed by 50% for 10 seconds. There’s also a new rank of Volley and Viper Sting available. And was the Viper change too good to last as is? Probably. This from Koraa:

We’re going to be changing it so that procs/hits restore a % of your base mana each time you hit, rather than base it off your actual DPS/damage. While the return of mana based on your actual damage numbers do make the ability a lot of fun (at least I thought so!), it has bad scaling issues.

Aug. 28, 2008

Changes to Debuffs, Buffs, and Raid Stacking

In some of the biggest Beta news to date, Jimmythenumbers (a Blizzard blue) has posted the following. It’s a lot to digest, for sure.

As Ghostcrawler has been posting recently, we’ve decided to make a change in the way we allow buffs and debuffs to stack exclusively in a raid. For the most part, what this change means is that many buffs and debuffs which were previously allowed to stack together no longer can, and that many buffs and debuffs which only a single talent specialization could bring can now be brought by multiple different specializations. The philosophy behind this change shows up in many of the changes we have made in Wrath of The Lich King, such as when we made almost all buffs raid-wide. We want players to be able to form raids and parties based on who they want to play with, rather than who has the correct talents and abilities to min-max their raid performance. Raid composition will still matter to some extent, but without this change, it would have overwhelmed every other aspect of raid planning (as we added new capabilities to each of 30 different talent trees). You no longer need to rigidly control the melee/spellcaster balance of your raid, or make sure every group has all the critical buffing classes, etc. This change has many class balance implications. Before we are done, we will thoroughly test the performance of every class. Do not assume that the classes’ current performance relative to others in the beta is final. Some classes (and specializations) will need to be reduced in power and some increased. Many will complain the change has more impact on class X than class Y. We will address all those concerns via our internal testing and community feedback.

Ok, given that preamble, here is a comprehensive list of the changes which were made. If testers find additional changes not documented, or additional changes that need to be made (“Hey, buff XYZ got left out of the plan!”), please post and we will investigate.

There are thirty or so different categories buffs and debuffs fit into, and I will list each category and which spells/talents are in that category.

Armor Debuff (Major): Acid Spit (exotic Hunter pet), Expose Armor, Sunder Armor
Armor Debuff (Minor): Faerie Fire, Sting (Hunter pet), Curse of Recklessness
Physical Vulnerability Debuff: Blood Frenzy, (2nd Talent Spec TBA)
Melee Haste Buff: Improved Icy Talons, Windfury Totem
Melee Critical Strike Chance Buff: Leader of the Pack, Rampage
Attack Power Buff (Flat Add): Battle Shout, Blessing of Might
Attack Power Buff (Multiplier): Abomination’s Might, Trueshot Aura, Unleashed Rage
Ranged Attack Power Buff: Hunter’s Mark (only Hunters benefit, so no need to exclude against other class abilities)
Bleed Damage Increase Debuff: Mangle, Trauma
Spell Haste Buff: Wrath of Air Totem
Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff: Moonkin Aura, Elemental Oath
Spell Critical Strike Chance Debuff: Improved Scorch, Winter’s Chill
Increased Spell Damage Taken Debuff: Ebon Plaguebringer, Earth and Moon, Curse of the Elements
Increased Spell Power Buff: Focus Magic, Improved Divine Spirit, Flametongue Totem, Totem of Wrath, Demonic Pact
Increased Spell Hit Chance Taken Debuff: Improved Faerie Fire, Misery
Percentage Haste Increase (All Types): Improved Moonkin Aura, Swift Retribution
Percentage Damage Increase: Ferocious Inspiration, Sanctified Retribution
Critical Strike Chance Taken Debuff (All types): Heart of the Crusader, Totem of Wrath
Melee Attack Speed Slow Debuff: Icy Touch, Infected Wounds, Judgements of the Just, Thunderclap
Melee Hit Chance Reduction Debuff: Insect Swarm, Scorpid Sting
Healing Debuff: Wound Poison, Aimed Shot, Mortal Strike, Furious Attacks
Attack Power Debuff: Demoralizing Roar, Curse of Weakness, Demoralizing Shout
Stat Multiplier Buff: Blessing of Kings
Stat Add Buff: Mark of the Wild
Agility and Strength Buff: Strength of Earth Totem, Horn of Winter
Stamina Buff: Power Word: Fortitude
Health Buff: Commanding Shout, Blood Pact
Intellect Buff: Arcane Intellect, Fel Intelligence
Spirit Buff: Divine Spirit, Fel Intelligence
Damage Reduction Percentage Buff: Grace, Blessing of Sanctuary
Percentage Increase Healing Received Buff: Tree of Life, Improved Devotion Aura
Armor Increase Percentage Buff: Inspiration, Ancestral Healing
Cast Speed Slow: Curse of Tongues, Slow, Mind-numbing Poison.

In each category, you can only benefit from the most powerful spell granting that effect. For example, Fel Intelligence grants Spirit and Intellect, both weaker than Arcane Intellect and Divine Spirit. If a player has Fel Intelligence and receives a stronger Arcane Intellect buff, he will gain the intellect value from Arcane Intellect and the Spirit value from Fel Intelligence.

In most cases, fully-talented players will have exactly equal power on the strength of these buffs and debuffs. Fel Intelligence is an example of where one ability is weaker than others. The buffs in the “Increased Spell Power Buff” category are also not all the same potency, as they scale in grow in radically different ways. In virtually every other case, however, the buffs are equal. This means, for example, that fully-talented Battle Shout and Blessing of Might now grant the exact same amount of Attack Power.

In addition to this change, we also needed to address the “mana battery” roles in a raid. The mana regeneration effect they grant is no longer limited to their own party, and it no longer depends on the amount of damage they deal. Each time they trigger the mana regeneration effect, 10 people in their raid group will receive a buff which causes them to regenerate 0.5% of their maximum mana each second. This buff, Replenishment, will be given preferentially to raid members with the lowest mana, but will re-evaluate which raid members receive it each time it is fired. Replenishment is provided by Shadow Priests, Survival Hunters, and Retribution Paladins.

Finally, we have modified Heroism and Bloodlust to affect the entire raid. However, all affected raid members will be unable to cast or benefit from Bloodlust/Heroism for 5 minutes.

I will also list the changes to abilities which exhibit new behavior regardless of the exclusive categories. The changes usually mean the old behavior was removed and replaced by the new behavior. Numbers listed are for maximally-talented versions. Here is that changelist:

Improved Scorch: Increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Winter’s Chill: Also increases spell critical strike chance against the target.
Elemental Oath: Grants 5% spell crital strike to raid members.
Improved Moonkin Aura: Grants 3% haste of all types.
Earth and Moon: Increases spell damage taken from all schools by 13% on the target.
Misery: Causes spells cast at the target to have +3% spell hit.
Shadow Weaving: Buffs only self.
Improved Shadow Bolt: Buffs only self.
Expose Weakness: Buffs only self.
Shadow Embrace: Buffs only self.
Blood Pact: Grants health instead of Stamina.
Fel Intelligence: Has replacement ranks that grant flat values of Intellect and Spirit.
Frost Aura: Excludes properly against all other resistance buffs.
Grace: Reduces damage taken by target by 3%.
Rampage: Increases melee and ranged critical strike chance by 5% for the raid.
Improved Faerie Fire: No longer benefits melee and ranged hit chance, only spell hit.
Hunter’s Mark: No longer increases attack power bonus from attacks against the target.
Improved Hunter’s Mark: No longer grants melee attack power.
Sting (Hunter pet): Now acts as a minor armor debuff.
Waylay: Attack speed reduction changed to 20%.
Icy Touch: Only slows melee attack speed (not ranged or spell).
Tree of Life: No longer grants healing based on spirit, grants 3% increased healing received to raid.
Demonic Pact: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Focus Magic: Now buffs raid instead of debuffing monsters.
Totem of Wrath: Now grants a flat amount of spell damage, and all enemies in its radius have an increased chance of being struck by criticals.
Heroism: Cannot be recast while caster has Exhausted debuff, and those with Exhausted debuff cannot be affected by it.
Bloodlust: Cannot be recast while caster has Sated debuff, and those with Sated debuff cannot be affected by it.
Vampiric Touch: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on dealing damage.
Hunting Party: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on specified shots.
Judgements of the Wise: Grants Replenishment mana regeneration buff to up to 10 raid members on Judging.

The obvious big changes are to Trueshot Aura (no, I have no more information regarding it becoming a multiplier, if I was to hazard a guess I’d say 10%), Hunting Party, Hunter’s Mark and Improved Hunter’s Mark, Scorpid Sting, Ferocious Inspiration, Acid Spit (pet), Sting (pet), Aimed Shot, Expose Weakness. Hopefully we’ll be provided with more in depth Hunter specific details soon.

Aug. 24, 2008

And the Beta key goes to...

Congratulations to Chunkchunk of Altar of Storms on wining TKA Something’s Rare Beast Scavenger Hunt! Thanks to everyone who entered – I had a great time looking at all of the screenshots and only wish I had more keys to give away!

Aug. 21, 2008

Get up on this!

Thank you MMO-Champion for tidying up all the hunter push changes for this newest Beta patch.

Animal Handler (Beast Mastery): No longer increases speed while mounted, but now reduces the cooldown of your Master’s Call ability by 5/10 sec.
Aspect of the Beast: Now increases your melee attack power by 10% for the hunter and the hunter’s pet.
Bestial Swiftness is now a pet talent tree talent, and has been removed from the Beast Mastery Hunter tree.
Disengage: This ability has been re-designed. Now leaps the Hunter backwards up to 13 yards. 30 second cooldown. Disengage now also only has one rank (rank 1).
Distracting Shot: This shot now “taunts” the target onto the Hunter. The taunt effect will last 6 seconds. Distracting Shot now only has one rank (rank 1).
Focused Fire (Beast Mastery): Now increases the critical strike chance of your Kill Command by 10/20/30% while Kill Command is active. This effect can stack up to 3 times, but diminishes for each charge of Kill Command.
Improved Stings (Marksmanship): Now a 3-point talent, down from 5-points.
Kill Command: This ability now increases the damage done by your pet’s special abilities by 60%. Each attack will reduce the damage bonus by 20%. 1 minute cooldown.
New Talent – Aspect Mastery (Beast Mastery)
New Talent – Hunter vs. Wild (Survival): Increases you and your pet’s attack power and ranged attack power equal to 10/20/30% of your total Stamina.
New Talent – Lock and Load (Survival): You have a 33/66/100% chance when you trap a target and a 10/20/30% chance when you sting a target to cause your next 3 Arcane Shot or Explosive Shot spells to trigger no cooldown, cost no mana and consume no ammo.
New Talent – T.N.T. (Survival): Your Immolation Trap, Explosive Trap and Explosive Shot have a 5/10/15% to stun targets for 2 sec when they deal damage, and increases the critical strike chance of your Explosive Shot and Explosive Trap by 5/10/15%.
Pathfinding (Beast Mastery): Now also increases the movement speed while mounted by 5/10%.
Readiness (Survival): Cooldown reduced to 3 minutes, down from 5 minutes.
Spirit Bond (Beast Mastery): Also increases healing done to you and your pet by 5/10%.
Steady Shot: Now has a 2.0 cast time, up from 1.5.
Surefooted (Survival) now reduces the duration of movement impairing effects by 16/25/50% (instead of resist % chance).
Survival Instincts (Survival): This has been moved to tier-2, up from tier 6.
Survivalist (Survival): Now increases your total Stamina, instead of your total Health.
The arming time has been reduced to 1 second, from 2 seconds for all traps.
Trap Mastery (Survival) is now an 11-point talent.
Trueshot Aura – This aura is now raid-wide.

And if that weren’t enough, we also get to see some of our new glyphs:

Glyph of Aimed Shot – Decreases the cooldown of Aimed Shot by 1 sec.
Glyph of Arcane Shot – Your Arcane Shot refunds 20% of its mana cost if the target has one of your Stings active on it.
Glyph of Aspect of the Beast – Increases the attack power bonus of Aspect of the Beast for you and your pet by an additional 2%.
Glyph of Aspect of the Monkey – While Aspect of the Monkey is active, each time you dodge you gain 30% increased movement speed for 6 sec. This speed does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.
Glyph of Aspect of the Viper – You regenerate mana from Aspect of the Viper as if you had 15% less mana in your current mana pool.
Glyph of Bestial Wrath – Decreases the cooldown of Bestial Wrath by 20 sec.
Glyph of Deterrence – Decreases the cooldown of Deterrence by 20 sec.
Glyph of Disengage – Decreases the cooldown of Disengage by 5 sec.
Glyph of Freezing Trap – When your Freezing Trap breaks, the victim is afflicted with a 40% snare, recovering 10% per sec. for 4 sec.
Glyph of Frost Trap – Increases the radius of the effect from your Frost Trap by 1 to 0 yards.
Glyph of Hunter’s Mark – Increases the attack power bonus of your Hunter’s Mark by 20%.
Glyph of Immolation Trap – Decreases the duration of the effect from your Immolation Trap by -6000 sec., but damage while active is increased by 100%.
Glyph of Improved Aspect of the Hawk – Increases the effect of Improved Aspect of the Hawk by an additional 6.
Glyph of Multi-Shot – Decreases the cooldown of Multi-Shot by 1 sec.
Glyph of Rapid Fire – Increases the haste from Rapid Fire by an additional 8%.
Glyph of Serpent Sting – Increases the duration of your Serpent Sting by 3 sec.
Glyph of Snake Trap – Your Snake Trap creates 2 additional snakes.
Glyph of Steady Shot – Increases the damage dealt by Steady Shot by 10% when your target is afflicted with Serpent Sting.
Glyph of Trueshot Aura – Increases the attack power bonus of Trueshot Aura by an additional 2%.
Glyph of Volley – Decreases the mana cost of Volley by -20%.
Glyph of Wyvern Sting – Decreases the cooldown of your Wyvern Sting by 0 sec., but decreases the damage it deals by 1 to 0%.

And, a few updates from the beta boards themselves. Furious Howl, can it be upped from 20 yards?

I’m not sure why Furious Howl had such a low range. My suspicion is it just hadn’t been touched in a long time. It’s 40 now.

Have boars lost their “fun factor” now that they can no longer charge?

We actually debated this issue quite a bit. In the end it came down to a call about whether it was more fitting to boars to keep Charge or whether it was more fitting for the boar to be a tanking pet. The tanking pets were all going to get Intervene instead of Charge, since it let them be more useful as an OT, and we didn’t think it was worth the cost of making changes or exceptions to that design just to preserve boars Charging.

In the end, we decided that boars are feared because they are tough. They have leathery skin, a stubborn disposition and had a reputation for fighting on long after their wounds should have killed them. In short, they felt like a tank. We tried to keep the feeling of the old Charge with the bonus component to Gore.

It was very difficult to come up with a whole new system for pets without losing any aspect of the old system that might be important to players. We are genuinely sorry though if there is a change you don’t like.

More about the Kill Command change:

Kill Command was initially created as a reactive ability, something you hit when an event happened (a critical strike). The problem was that the event happened too often, and players just stuck it into a macro. Kill Command basically just became a flat damage increase. Players are right to assume their DPS has jumped because of shots not interrupting the auto-shot timer (it has, our tests show a ~140 DPS increase in some trials), so I think it’s fair to say the class’ sustained DPS will be okay.

Also, the level cap has been raised to 80 so expect more updates on my journey through Northrend post on the TKA Something board, and wasps are also tameable now AND there are still a few days left to win a Beta Key in TKA Something’s Rare Beast Scavenger Hunt!

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