Patch 5.4 patch notes
Virtual Realms feature revealed
The Proving Grounds are coming
The latest patch 5.4 newsUpcoming class and item balance changes
by Adam Holisky 
Jan 7th 2010 at 8:17PM
There has been a lot of good discussion lately concerning various aspects of the DPS status quo. Some classes are putting out too much compared to their cloth counterparts, and others have suddenly found themselves too powerful in certain areas of the game. Blizzard recognizes this, and this evening the Lead System Designer, Ghostcrawler, came out and enumerated a few things Blizzard believes are true.
Ghostcrawler has left the door open to these class and item balance issues being fixed (if Blizzard decides to pursue such fixes) in either a hotfix or through an upcoming patch. Chief among these changes are an increase in warlock DPS, a decrease in rogue DPS, a change in protection warriors to limit their utility in PvP, and refinements to Icecrown Citadel weapon procs.
When looking over this laundry list of areas to change, it's important to remember that Ghostcrawler is not promising a fix, and that he and his team are not ready to share specifics. He has not promised you the pony, so don't be mad if some of these changes don't happen.
Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.
Ghostcrawler has left the door open to these class and item balance issues being fixed (if Blizzard decides to pursue such fixes) in either a hotfix or through an upcoming patch. Chief among these changes are an increase in warlock DPS, a decrease in rogue DPS, a change in protection warriors to limit their utility in PvP, and refinements to Icecrown Citadel weapon procs.
When looking over this laundry list of areas to change, it's important to remember that Ghostcrawler is not promising a fix, and that he and his team are not ready to share specifics. He has not promised you the pony, so don't be mad if some of these changes don't happen.
Ghostcrawler's full statement after the break.
From Ghostcrawler:
As many of you have suspected, we think rogue damage is too high. We will be making hotfixes to lower the maximum damage output of Assassination and Combat rogues. The Combat nerf will be slight. Both specs should still do just fine on damage meters (assuming skill, gear etc.) but shouldn't be beating out other specs to such a large degree.
Other things on our radar that you might see soon -- none of these are promises and we have no specific changes to announce yet:
- Warlock damage in PvE is a little low.
- Protection warriors have too much utility and damage for PvP. (We don't want to hurt their tanking in PvE of course.)
- We are considering adjusting (not replacing) the Elemental 4 piece Tier 10 set bonus.
- We'll continue to refine and look at the Icecrown weapon procs.
- Other stuff (yes, we've heard your concerns), but these are the big things we are focusing on at this time.
We usually don't make such general announcements before we're ready to share the specifics, so we'll see how this works out.
Filed under: Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 9 of 9)
Banzai Jan 8th 2010 12:31PM
Hunger for Blood is sure a handy talent for the Devs. Basically, which ever way Rogue DPS goes, they can just change the numbers on that one talent and get Assassination Rogues to where ever they want them to be.
TBH, the whole talent is pretty much crap. It works, it does what's needed, but it's pretty much the most boring talent ever. With this nerf now, +5% damage on targets with bleeds on them... Seems it ain't enough for the 51-pointer to be boring, it also needs to be a bad design. About time to make it something exciting and engaging, instead of a boring damage boost.
Sulcus Jan 8th 2010 12:36PM
two ideas for making HfB cool again.
When HfB is active remaining combo points transfer to next target.
When Hfb is active Evasion and Kick cooldowns are cut by 1/2
Sulfikar Jan 8th 2010 1:16PM
I finally got my pony yesterday: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=47541
Josin Jan 8th 2010 3:21PM
Got mine a few weeks back. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49289
Lemons Jan 8th 2010 1:46PM
I wish they could of nerfed rogue PvE without aslo nerfing us in PvP. That 10% poison damage reduction is just brutal, as if we don't already have enough trouble with plate as it is.
Sulcus Jan 8th 2010 1:58PM
I thought about this too after I wrote it. You are right. Maybe taking Opportunity from the Subtlety tree then. Or make HfB 5% damage boost 5% haste boost
Josin Jan 8th 2010 3:18PM
I really think GC is overreacting to forum QQ with this whole decision. Prot warriors aren't sitting atop the Arena brackets, and most of us aren't going on mad killing sprees in PvP Battlegrounds. When other classes have gotten nerfed for PvP reasons, it's been because they were doing one or both of these. We're doing neither, generally speaking.
Simply being "frustrating" doesn't mean players need to be nerfed. Warlocks and rogues frustrate me in every PvP environment I enter. Are we going to take away their fears and stuns? No, probably not. Warrior utility is a very fun aspect of playing a Prot-specced Warrior. I LOVE the fact that I can draw attention away from my teammates by being an annoyance. If my cooldowns are properly handled, I can survive quite a lot of punishment. (Not as much as a not-OP-at-all protection-specced class that will not be named, mind you, but still quite a bit.) But the tradeoff for that survivability is that I'm not going to get a lot of attacks in, and when I do, they're not much to write home about.
Now, apparently some folks have found a way to gear that counteracts these damage deficiencies. To that I say, "Good for them!" They worked within the system and found a way to be effective damage dealers. Now, if they're being considered too effective, find a way to fix their solution to the problem, not "fix" US to undo their solution.
I'd rather see a limit put on ArPen (similar to the way Block Value was "fixed") than to have you guys mucking about in our abilities in ways that are sure to screw with PvE tanking, where we already operate at a deficit in nearly every measurable statistic. (We're not always last in a statistic, but we're never first.)
Sinanju Jan 8th 2010 4:45PM
Yes, he did so promise me a pony, he did he did!
Erdinger Jan 8th 2010 5:37PM
WHAT ABOUT HASTE BEING THE DEVIL FOR ALL BOOMKIN!!!!
Joester Jan 8th 2010 6:58PM
Warlock damage in PvE is a little low.
FIX LOCKS!
If their nerfing PVP Prot. for Warriors. then nerf Pallys Prot. in PVP too.
laf Jan 9th 2010 3:33AM
saying that prot war's do to much dmg is the dumbest thing i've heard. nerf the abortion known as prot/ret pallys ffs you jackass
Clbull Jan 8th 2010 7:51PM
Once again, Hunters are being ignored.
If Blizzard want to fix class balance for Hunters, and make them actually viable in Arena as anything that isn't a Burst team, then they need to
1) Nerf Dismantle/Disarm, or make Deterrence useable whilst disarmed, i.e. not require a melee weapon.
2) Buff the damage of Explosive Shot by about 10 - 15%
3) Remove the cooldown and dot from Wyvern Sting, but add diminishing returns.
4) Make Scatter Shot baseline and affect targets in a 20 yard cone in front of the Hunter.
5) Rework Raptor Strike to be a devastating melee strike, hitting very high and immobilising the target for 5 seconds, but on a 30 second cooldown.
Lemons Jan 11th 2010 1:54PM
Hunters are already arena viable...Just look at the SK top 100...it's like 11% hunters. The only other DPS that is more viable is locks at 13%.
Hunters need a good nerf if anything...4 seconds of explosive shot should not eat half my health with the resilience I'm packing.
Clbull Jan 12th 2010 12:44PM
@Lemons
Do people in high rating Arena forget how to snare Hunters in melee and cheaply 4 shot them or something? If people are having problems with Hunters in Arena, they need to either l2roll a melee class, or majorly l2p.
And no, they're not overpowered, that is just complete and utter bullcrap spread by all the PvP QQing melee who whine they can't oneshot someone.
Ohlaf Jan 9th 2010 3:04PM
OK well first off I have a Warrior, Lock and Pally. I've done arena and PvE with all of them. I've also been up against all the other classes in arena. Since all the nerf's/boosts are always based on arena I'll talk about that first.
The class I have the most problem with at the moment is, Mage. As a Pally healer they can get rid of all my buffs such as sacred shield, beacon, etc. Then they can spell lock my casting,and they can spam polymorph me as many times in a row as they want. They can deep freeze me, daze me and on top of all that they can nuke me down fast. As a Warrior I can't even get near one and when I do I get morphed/frozen to the spot or just plain nuked into next week. As a Warlock I don't have the burst to compete with a Mage anymore or the DPS to burn them down before they've had a chance to knock me into next week. If any class needs a nerf it's Mages. Look at the top ten arena players, see a Warrior there? No. How many rogues do you see? One. How many mages and disc priests do you see? Plenty. That should tell people something. As a Prot Warrior we have great CC yes, but to get the kind of damage others have mentioned we'd have to gimp our survivability and still not have any resilience so it would never really work, we'd be a high damage CC machine that would last about 5 seconds against heavy burst.
As far as PvE goes....Warriors during TBC sucked as a tank class compared to Paladin, we were always second choice. Finally in Wrath we're getting to see some great performance from them in raids and they are a joy to play. Nerf them again and we will go back to "oh who's the tank, yea that pally over there".
On subject of Rogues I really don't see how anyone can argue they need nerf'd. One on one a mage on a single target vs a rogue the mage will be top everytime unless they're undergeared or just a useless faceroller with no talent, who button mashes and hopes for the best. It really depends on the fight and use of moves. With Seed of Corruption on a Warlock I can get stupidly high numbers in Ony on the whelps and make myself look like an OP superstar but it's a lie and it's all a bunch of crappy spike damage. A trick that a FoK'ing rogue will always exploit to look good on the meters(since meters are all that matter it seems). To base DPS on the last boss fight in the first wing of ICC is plain stupid and short sighted.
Classes
On my Pally & Warrior in DPS spec I know I'm never(should never) going to top any meter for real. It's a hybrid and as such I accept that. With my Lock I'm really pretty fed up with nerf after nerf and I've kind of stopped playing him because I'm sick of fighting the bat. But overall let's look at it this way. Feral DPS is just as high as any Rogue, plus raid utility such as buffs and a combat ress, so nerf Rogues? Who is going to want a Rogue? Druids, Pally's and Shamans have the best raid buffs of all classes, is it fair that they should top Mages, Rogues, Locks and Hunters that have barely any raid utility in comparison? The sensible answer is no.
Right now there is one class that really needs nerf'd and it's not the Rogue or Warrior it's the M.A.G.E.
fernando Jan 11th 2010 6:31AM
we 3 rogues in our guild finish always in the first 3 places at dps in ICC25... there must be something to it
oowxam Jan 13th 2010 3:01AM
One thing that has sort have been bothering me with my Warlock is Curse of Tongues..
Originally it slowed casting speed by 50% and 60% for 30 sec, lowered to 12 sec in PvP.
Then it was nerfed down to 25% and 30%.
Now nobody uses it, simply because it's not worth having your curse be as such.
I know it's not PvE, and Warlock PvE DOES need fixes.. But this thing has just been kind of bugging me.
And not to complain more, but a one minute infernal? I'd rather have to re-enslave it (or let it cause some chaos :D) than switch out my pet for a mediocre 1-minute pet.
Jared Feb 5th 2010 9:50AM
why drop rogue dps? we have no armor, limited to dagers for ok damage and lack buffs. dps is the only thing we have goin rite now. i mean i thought their would be an improvement when i read this. but not at all. rogues need something better. not less.
i play full out combat rogue with sword main and still do less dps than anything else. why are rogues placed in a spot whare they have to rely on spec abileties that require dagers, when that givs another downfall to our leather armor.