News Roundup: New Tier Set Bonuses, Holy Paladin Nerfs, and Dancing

posted 2011/05/13 at 12:42 AM by Ashelia

we datamined the tier 12 set bonuses from the PTR that New Tier Set Bonuses

We've seen a lot of discussion and debate over the new set bonuses. Just so everyone is aware, we're still assessing the set bonuses for tier 12 as we go through more testing and gathering more feedback.

To give you a heads up on what we're looking at so far though, here are the most recent bonuses we have in mind for some of the sets (some of what's listed below are amendments to the existing bonuses on the PTR).

Some of these bonuses might already be live as of the build pushed earlier this week, while some are yet to be implemented. If your class/specialization isn't listed here, it means the bonuses either haven't changed, or the changes haven't been solidified. Just the same, all of this is subject to ch-ch-changes over the course of the PTR process. Your feedback is appreciated!

Blood Death Knight 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Dancing Rune Weapon now begins when Dancing Rune Weapon wears off, instead of lasting while Dancing Rune Weapon is active.
Frost/Unholy Death Knight 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities deal 6% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.
Feral Druid 4-Piece: The bonus to dodge from Barkskin now begins when Barkskin wears off, instead of lasting while Barkskin is active.
Restoration Druid 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.
Holy Paladin 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Healing with Holy Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.
Holy Paladin 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your Holy Light, Flash of Light, and spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards for 10% of the amount healed.
Protection Paladin 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Divine Protection now begins when Divine Protection wears off, instead of lasting while Divine Protection is active.
Holy/Discipline Priest 2-Piece: Now also triggers from casting Prayer of Mending.
Holy/Discipline Priest 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- You have a chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a at the target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750 health. Lasts 5 seconds.
Shadow Priest 2-Piece: Now requires the priest to be in to be active.
Warlock 4-Piece: Now also triggers from casting .
Arms/Fury Warrior 2-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- Your and abilities grant you an additional 35 rage. Cannot occur more often than once every 60 seconds.
Protection Warrior 4-Piece: The bonus to parry from Shield Wall now begins when Shield Wall wears off, instead of lasting while Shield Wall is active.

Patch 4.2: Holy Paladin Nerfs

We increased paladin mana costs because they were too efficient at healing. In raid encounters, for instance, paladins were sitting at 40% of their mana while the other healers were flat out of mana. Paladins were casting Holy Light as their main heal because they didn’t need the efficiency of . You personally may not have been in that situation, but when looking at the overall picture, as well as running plenty of tests, this was our conclusion overall. It is entirely possible this will hurt Holy paladins in PvP, where mana can be harder to come by. It is our hope that the recent Speed of Light change as well as another change or two coming will help offset that.

We did not make these mana cost changes because of the change to critical heals or because of any upcoming set bonuses (which are still being designed, by the way). We made the changes only because paladins were too efficient compared to druids, priests and shaman.

As a postscript, we see a lot of paladins advocating a strategy of Beacon the tank, heal the off-tank with Holy Light, and never ever do anything else... and if you ever heal the Beacon target, you fail. That’s just not a realistic goal. Stuff is going to happen that is unpredictable, or else you’d probably win every fight. You should make the most of Beacon, absolutely. It’s a great tool. But you shouldn’t consider anything that doesn’t maximize Beacon to be a class design or personal performance failure. Sometimes you’re going to want to heal the Beacon target directly. It happens.

Conquest Points

So, as many of you are interpreting this change, it is to encourage more participation in Rated Battlegrounds. We see the fact that participating in Arenas is by far the superior way of obtaining top-notch PvP gear, in terms of time investment, as a problem. If you want to maximize your Conquest Point gains in patch 4.2, you'll need to participate at least a little bit in Rated Battlegrounds.

We know this may not sound very appealing to those of you who have grown accustomed to spending as little as an hour a week getting the top PvP currency in the game via Arenas over the last couple of expansions. To put things in perspective though, the total number of items that can be purchased with Conquest Points today is much larger than what you used to be able to buy with Arena Points pre-Deathwing world explosion. And there is no longer a requirement to “grind” unrated BGs for Honor each season, so the real time investment isn't changing as much as some players are perceiving it to be.

On top of that, the frank reality is that the total time investment required in season 9 to get all your points has been much, much too low, as you could do that from a few 2v2 Arena games each week completed in less than an hour’s time. It shows that Rated Battlegrounds are currently sub-par in terms of the rate at which points can be accumulated.

We do feel this change is necessary to keep the time investment vs. high-quality item accumulation in check, even if it doesn't read well on paper. However, as always, your constructive feedback is welcomed. :)

Dancing in Combat is Back

We've been repeatedly saying in various threads recently that we are listening, even if we're not acting on every piece of feedback we read. Well readers, listen up!

With the help of Ghostcrawler, the following will be added to the patch notes for the next PTR update:

Players are once again free to dance in combat (without causing graphic errors). Other animations, such as attacks, will take precedence over dancing. The dance animation will be suppressed until the higher priority animation is complete. Fun has been unnerfed.

The concerns of the people vanished. And there was much dancing.

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Comment by LoKHor I believe he meant to say, "And much dancing was had by all." Especially holy paladins. :p Comment by Xsile The DK 4 set. Why would you even want to get that? That's not a "bonus" in any fashion of the word. You're just taking an already existing buff and delaying it. Comment by limitgreen Ooo yea PRIEST heal FTW :) Finaly no more healing when someone has clicked ... like it a lot ;) Comment by KingZ3R0 The DK 4 set. Why would you even want to get that? That's not a "bonus" in any fashion of the word. You're just taking an already existing buff and delaying it.Comment by MathiasSchnell The DK 4 set. Why would you even want to get that? That's not a "bonus" in any fashion of the word. You're just taking an already existing buff and delaying it.Comment by kirenaaz The main reason reason extending a smaller buff after the main one expires is to reduce the chance of wasting parry/dodge going over the 102.8% avoidance mark as well as making it easier to time the bonus to coincide with at least one boss ability. Comment by Gnub And the 4-set Elemental bonus remain unchanged... sigh. :< Comment by bloodyhoof Holy/Discipline Priest 4-Piece: Old bonus removed and replaced -- You have a chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame at the target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750 health. Lasts 5 seconds.

thank go they changed it! Comment by rnbw And the 4-set Elemental bonus remain unchanged... sigh. :<Comment by Gnub It's not definitive yet, it may yet change.Comment by Jesara We want to encourage holy light over divine light, so we made holy light less efficient too... really? Comment by Orranis The DK 4 set. Why would you even want to get that? That's not a "bonus" in any fashion of the word. You're just taking an already existing buff and delaying it.Comment by desperado2294 I really wish blizzard would quit trying to make this game so simple yet so difficult to play Comment by Vaelioux I believe he meant to say, "And much dancing was had by all." Especially holy paladins. :pComment by Monirestra 1.) Who in their right mind would use Divine Light as a main heal? That's an "oh crap" button imo.
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2.) Now if they would please fix the mana cost of cleanse. That's rediculous in a raid also imo. Comment by Azazel Moniresta

I don't know much about PvE healing, but really? Really? Comment by Interest > Glad they're changing up tier bonuses. Comment by Ashelia 1.) Who in their right mind would use Divine Light as a main heal? That's an "oh crap" button imo.
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2.) Now if they would please fix the mana cost of cleanse. That's rediculous in a raid also imo.Comment by LadyEnfinity Huzzah!

/dances

<3 Comment by KittyKat77 Wow. I had noticed that other healers in our guild raids were calling OOM (the druid and the priest) while my paladin still had some mana left. Healing meters showed it wasn't because of a difference in amount of healing done, we were all in the same general range.

I figured maybe it was gear levels or something, I know the priest in particular said she was having difficulty acquiring upgrades in some slots.

It's disappointing that because other healers are having trouble keeping mana up through the duration of a boss fight, the answer is "make sure paladins are running OOM too, so ALL the healers are OOM, and there can be MOAR WIPES!"

Yeah, because that's so much fun.

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