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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGhostcrawler: Round 1 of patch 4.0.1 class rebalancing implemented
by Fox Van Allen 
Oct 14th 2010 at 3:00PM
WoW Insider's own Matt Rossi had a terrific post yesterday about the class balancing issues that we were seeing with patch 4.0.1. Casters like me were experiencing the thrill of god mode, with reports of mages being able to one-shot their opponents. And while we casters were getting sweet, delicious ponies, melee players got a big pile of pony excrement. Arms and fury DPS were down -- way down. So was retribution paladin and kitty DPS.
Last night, Lead Systems Designer Ghostcrawler let us all know that fixes were on the way. Today, he confirmed that fixes were implemented and explained what was done to each affected class to balance them out. The full post explaining who got buffed, who got nerfed and why is available just after the break.
Class balance as of Oct 13, 2010We made many changes yesterday. A lot of these were bug fixes, and many bug fixes will affect damage one way or the other. So just because you don't see a specific change referenced below, doesn't mean it didn't change.
With that said, here are the specific changes we made in reference to my previous post:
1) We buffed the base points and coefficients of many warrior dps abilities. We didn't do as much to tanking abilities.
We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Ret abilities.
We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Feral cat abilities.
2) We lowered the base points and coefficients of many mage abilities, but lowered Fire more than the other two.
3) We nerfed Shadow Word: Death, but it is possible we didn't nerf it enough. It should not be Shadow's biggest spell.
4) We returned Searing Pain's damage to its 3.3.5 levels.
5) We increased the benefit of resilience by 50% for players level 80 and below. The tooltips will probably not reflect this change.
We don't have any other changes to announce at this time. I am reluctant to mention additional classes or specs that we are looking at currently for fear of instilling excitement or panic.
With that said, here are the specific changes we made in reference to my previous post:
1) We buffed the base points and coefficients of many warrior dps abilities. We didn't do as much to tanking abilities.
We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Ret abilities.
We buffed the base points and coefficients of many Feral cat abilities.
2) We lowered the base points and coefficients of many mage abilities, but lowered Fire more than the other two.
3) We nerfed Shadow Word: Death, but it is possible we didn't nerf it enough. It should not be Shadow's biggest spell.
4) We returned Searing Pain's damage to its 3.3.5 levels.
5) We increased the benefit of resilience by 50% for players level 80 and below. The tooltips will probably not reflect this change.
We don't have any other changes to announce at this time. I am reluctant to mention additional classes or specs that we are looking at currently for fear of instilling excitement or panic.
This is it! Patch 4.0.1 begins the slide into December's upcoming expansion. It's a whole new game from here on out. Get oriented with our roundup of everything there is to know about patch 4.0.1 and how it changes the game until the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Filed under: News items, Raiding
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 9)
Fox Van Allen Oct 14th 2010 3:35PM
Well, I could have delayed this breaking news post by 15 minutes to get a really awesome photoshopped image together, but ... :|
Qot Oct 14th 2010 4:44PM
Hm. Let me time this.
Qot Oct 14th 2010 4:50PM
And done.
http://i.imgur.com/U3Myc.jpg
Jorges Oct 14th 2010 5:35PM
So Deathwing got one-shotted by a crab?
NERF CRAB DPS NOW!!11!!1
Drakkenfyre Oct 14th 2010 10:24PM
I would have preferred no header image at all as opposed to one we have seen, what, 12 times now?
Adam Oct 14th 2010 9:47PM
And I was just starting to fall in love with SW:D
Trilynne Oct 14th 2010 3:05PM
" I am reluctant to mention additional classes or specs that we are looking at currently for fear of instilling excitement or panic. "
No kidding xD Don't worry, GC, we trust you!
Abbadon Oct 14th 2010 3:14PM
LOL... I was about to use the same quote!
GC just doesn't want to see the forums implode.
Kolyarut Oct 14th 2010 3:27PM
Do we, though?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to start a lets-flame-GCer rageathon, but wasn't he responsible for overseeing these changes going in in the first place? People have been saying for a very long time "it's hard to say how it'll actually play since the numbers aren't fixed yet" - but I guess it turns out that they were, and now they're going to have to do a rush job on a fix (aside from whether or not you feel the initial 4.0.1 changes were rushed or not, the last set of changes just got put in overnight, there's no way that went through a thorough test cycle...)
Again, the last thing we need to do is all nerdrage at Ghostcrawler, but it's not like it's the first time a class or spec has wound up working poorly despite extensive test time.
Nyold Oct 14th 2010 3:59PM
@Kolyarut
I think I have to agree with you here. If the numbers are balanced at 85 and imbalanced at 80 (and by imbalanced I mean GROTESQUELY imbalanced), who knows what other levels are imbalanced? What about a level 30 mage vs a 30 ret pally? And who says that these lower levels are not important? It affects:
1. Lower level BG brackets
2. People's perception at early levels that mage is OP and ret pally is weak, which may lead people to abandon their lowbie alts early on.
With Blizzard's focus on 1-60 leveling experience, balancing numbers only at 85 seems very contradictory with their general philosophy in Cata. If it's only balanced at one level, then something is seriously wrong with either their scaling formula, combat rating formula, or something else... basically, GC, double check your math please.
niko Oct 14th 2010 4:07PM
blues have already said that the issues we're seeing here and now were not evident on the PTR.
So checking math is something they had already done, but when the changes went live on the live servers, it didn't work right.
They are doing the best they can.
Stoop Oct 14th 2010 4:17PM
@niko Bullcrap. I know for certain issues that were reported and posted and folks just yelled them down with calls of "It's beta/ptr don't worry, it'll be fixed before it's live" and now it's live with the same issues. I've seen too many times where something that didn't get fixed early stayed that way throughout an expansion. Blizz seems loath to fix an issue if it's not what they consider "Game-breaking", even if it pushes a spec way down in PvE or Arena. They put them off or ignore them until a big content patch like this. So if you don't make sure Blizz knows about the amount of displeasure with a certain bug, you end up stuck with it until the next go-round.
Kolyarut Oct 14th 2010 4:26PM
Trilynne - if this stuff wasn't evident on the PTR, then they're really wasting time and money running the server in the first place. Did anybody spend more than ten minutes playing on patch day without running across a half a dozen severely broken mechanics and numbers?
People have been reporting for months that the numbers on all the spells were severely broken, but it would all be ironed out before release. Blizzard would have had to have their heads buried so deep in the sand they could see China if they weren't prepped for this possibility (maybe they were, which is why they were able to turn around phase 1 of fixes so fast, but I doubt that's the case really).
Maybe they are doing the best they can, but you'd expect the leading subscription MMO in the west to be able to manage better, really - especially since half the ratings changes, the rage changes and the DK spec changes were all made with the express purpose of making them easier to balance.
Again, to balance the QQ - there are plenty of patch elements which I think are quite nice, such as mob tracking, being able to see party member quest completions with the default UI, the new talent tree bonuses, will all be great once they've fixed the numbers. They just could have held the good stuff back until they were ready with the gameplay itself.
Kolyarut Oct 14th 2010 4:27PM
Crap it - that was meant for Niko's reply, not Trilynne's original comment. I cannot get my head around this comment system.
Trilynne Oct 14th 2010 4:57PM
Kolyarut: haha, I was going to say, I'm just enjoying all the responses my tiny little comment got, not participating in the discussion. :P The only bug that's bothering me atm is how hunter pets don't sustain their attacks underwater for some weird reason. *shrugs*
Azradesh Oct 14th 2010 3:06PM
Still not quite sure why fire was nerfed more then the other two, arcane does the most by far.
Meatwadz Oct 14th 2010 3:13PM
I saw a screenshot of a 107k arcane blast crit in icc. I haven't been able to locate it again but.... yeah....
Sunaseni Oct 14th 2010 3:24PM
Arcane does the most... for 10 seconds. Fire consistently, throughout a long boss fight, do more. A lot more.
And I'm glad to say, Frost is in a good place. It's actually competitive, so I'm glad to play with my blue buddy again.
vanye111 Oct 14th 2010 3:38PM
I'm just hoping that the changes didn't kill frost. In 5 mans, I was pulling 6-9.5k dps.
Over a nine minute "fight" on a dummy that everyone else was beating on, while learning what I should be doing, I was hitting 6.7kdps.
I'm going to be a very sad caster if that is gone. :(
Daynthebold Oct 14th 2010 4:01PM
"I'm glad to play with my blue buddy again."
If it's blue you need to let go.