Latest / For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast / #393 - For Azeroth!: “Sorry to Burst Your Damage"

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#393 - For Azeroth!: “Sorry to Burst Your Damage" · For Azeroth!: A World of Warcraft Podcast

0:00
I play with an elemental shaman every single day.
0:03
He literally does less damage than I do if he's not in
0:06
ascendance like it is. It's not a joke, it's not a
0:09
meme. He does less than tank damage
0:11
when he's not in his cooldown window.
0:13
Victory for the Forsaken. For Lauderon.
0:18
For the Karen tour. For.
0:21
Pandaria. For calendar to the.
0:26
Burning region for Gilnaeus but has not died, for the Lich King,
0:35
for the Sindori, for the Alliance, for the Horde, for
0:41
Azeroth. Hello and welcome to a new
0:46
episode of For Azeroth. I am your host Manny, AKA The
0:51
Treatment Manny, and I am joined by the wonderful, the lovely,
0:55
the Lex Rants. Hello Lex, how are you and how's
0:59
the World of Warcraft been treating you?
1:01
I am great, Manny. I just came back from the
1:04
Renfair. Well, not I didn't just come
1:06
back, but it's the Renfair yesterday.
1:07
So I'm feeling very inspired. I'm convinced that this fall is
1:10
going to be a Cape with fall. I think that's universal.
1:13
I think this is just the vibe of the fall for us all.
1:15
So go buy your Cape. Let's this is a a trend a a
1:18
trend prediction. A trend prediction is what I'm
1:21
doing. I'm very good at fashion.
1:24
So I'm I'm feeling hyped up, I'm feeling nerdy, I'm feeling good.
1:27
And then after that, I wanted to do some mythic plus with my
1:29
friends and I'm probably doing some mythic mythic plus again
1:31
tonight. So apparently I heal mythic plus
1:34
now, so that's cool. We ball.
1:36
We did not get lowered down, but we got pretty consistently into
1:39
phase 3. So it's just going to be, you
1:41
know, we're just working on getting a couple more item
1:43
levels and, and, and ready to go and we should knock on a lot of
1:46
wood, be good to go next week. I feel horrible I jinxed it.
1:50
I thought you were just talking about the one boss and then I
1:54
just no AOTC you. Guaranteed that fast devil heard
1:59
and it's like absolutely no AOTC for them.
2:02
Secret, very localized stealth buffs.
2:06
But we are not alone. We have, of course, the
2:11
currently silent but spectacular Sean.
2:14
Hello Sean, how are you and how's World of Warcraft treating
2:17
you? Hello, Manny.
2:19
Hello, Lex. I'm doing well.
2:22
Life's kind of a whirlwind right now.
2:23
We have home inspections coming up on Thursday for a place we
2:28
put an offer in on Prince Edward's Island.
2:32
And yeah, so that's happening. Warcraft has been good.
2:38
Turbulent time waves launches tomorrow as of this recording,
2:41
so I'm ready to hit the ground running in maxo.
2:43
The rest of my characters, probably just the tanks.
2:46
Maybe a healer. I was going to do this weird
2:48
healer challenge thing. I don't know if it's going to
2:49
happen now, but yeah Lex if you need a tank tonight for mythic
2:53
plus, I got nothing going on so hit me up.
2:55
I will happily come tank some keys for you.
2:57
I got lots of characters from Chris still but.
2:59
We we do unfortunately have if nothing a a a dearth of tank or
3:04
would I I might have mixed that mixed that we have too many.
3:08
Yeah, we have an overwhelm. Abundance.
3:11
An abundance of tanks. We are the one group I've ever
3:14
run with where occasionally we'll have to like split groups
3:16
and everyone will have to pug, or like one group will have to
3:18
pug a ton of DPS because we cannot get enough to, we can't
3:21
get enough DPS and we have too many tanks on heels.
3:25
I mean, Sean, how's your mage doing?
3:30
Yeah, yeah. Wait, you were like best friends
3:32
with the mage and then he? Laughed.
3:33
I feel like this is one of the Sean fads.
3:35
They last about two hours after the recording, just long enough
3:39
for him to say he's in. It was fun, I enjoyed it.
3:41
I I really just want to tank, you know, I'm going to try
3:46
Warlock out on EU. We'll see how that goes.
3:49
I really just want to tank. It's just.
3:51
It's your group. You know, yeah, it's my
3:53
preference, right? It's what I want to do.
3:55
But other than that, it's warm here today, so I don't have any
3:57
pants on. So don't ask me to stand up
3:59
because that would be super embarrassing.
4:01
OK, well we'll never talk about your pants again, Sean.
4:04
Let us move on. We started last episode and got
4:12
through about half of everything coming in 12.1, and so we're
4:17
going to talk about the rest of it as well as going a little bit
4:21
more in depth on some of the other stuff that we've now had
4:25
some time to test. So one of the things that we
4:29
didn't get to talk about and finally got some time on the PTR
4:33
and got to test this is that there are absolute abundance of
4:40
class changes, which includes a big change to just how they want
4:46
to approach some damage profiles.
4:49
For those of you who maybe were living and dying by your
4:53
cooldowns Shaman, they are aware that many classes were having
5:01
most of their power in those short windows of cooldowns.
5:05
And so outside of those windows, your class would feel sluggish.
5:10
They said you would feel somewhat underpowered.
5:13
And in terms of damage profiles, burst damage, if you do the same
5:18
amount of damage flat or if you do the same amount of damage,
5:21
burst, burst damage typically affords you more possibility.
5:26
Like you, you do your burst window, you do your damage.
5:28
If you get pushed off the boss outside of that window, it
5:31
doesn't hurt you as much as if you were trying to sustain
5:33
damage, But it's not what they want.
5:36
So they are taking the axe to many of these cooldowns and
5:41
adjusting the things so that you do more damage outside of your
5:46
windows. Now this is true for many
5:50
classes. We have seen this for the demon
5:53
hunters. The rather devourer demon
5:56
hunters are getting some adjustments there.
5:59
I already said elemental shamans, even if you weren't
6:02
like the most bursty, they have adjusted a number of classes all
6:06
the way through. In general, though, Lex, has
6:10
this been something that like your team has noticed or
6:14
complained about or is this sort of like, oh, I like it was just
6:18
gameplay for it at your with your team?
6:22
Sorry, I got really distracted 'cause I read the preset bonus
6:25
for the first time and I was trying to figure out whether or
6:27
not I ever cast the spell renew. So anyway, we'll talk about that
6:31
in a second because I'm confused, but that's OK.
6:35
That's it's definitely not saying we like talked about per
6:40
SE. Demon Hunter is always super
6:42
bursty. So like that's the only thing
6:45
that I really played enough to think deeply about it.
6:48
And I kind of just I get a little surprised when I learned
6:50
that other people don't just like press 2 buttons on repeat
6:53
until it's time to boom and then you boom and then you press 2
6:55
buttons on repeat. Have a good day.
6:58
So which I enjoy. So you know, I'm not, I have
7:01
nothing to complain about. I and I'm sure again, we'll talk
7:03
about this in a second. I honestly kind of wish that the
7:06
tear set was just like it makes your core rotation stronger.
7:14
I think that's fine in general, because what I'm, and again,
7:18
I'll complain about this in a second, but what I'm seeing in
7:20
in both of the set bonuses that I know anything about, is it it
7:25
it changes the way you play in ways that people don't often
7:30
play or there's I I'm really confused about this holy priest
7:33
set bonus. You guys.
7:33
I'm clearly not a good holy priest.
7:36
Because what the hell. But I and and it always feels a
7:40
little bad when you get like kind of strong armed into
7:43
spacking into something you don't want to spack into.
7:45
I feel this is apotheosis. I learned holy priest as a holy
7:49
word, serenity girly and to the fact that I'm now spacking into
7:52
apotheosis, which is not like I just don't I don't want to spack
7:55
into apotheosis. I don't OK, like whatever, I'll
7:58
do it right. You have to basically, but
8:00
whatever. So I think the when the
8:05
personally, I feel like when the the set forces you into a a
8:10
certain talent tree, that can be a little annoying.
8:14
And I think that often is what they do, which maybe means it's
8:16
the point. Maybe that's what they want if
8:17
they want to be affecting the rotation, but I think it's
8:19
silly. Yeah, definitely.
8:22
They do want the set bonuses to be affecting rotation to make
8:28
you consider things that you maybe you hadn't before.
8:31
One of the goals for the set bonuses themselves were was
8:36
specifically that they didn't want to reintroduce burst back
8:40
in after them trying to reduce the burst in this season.
8:45
So a lot of these set bonuses you'll see will be after your
8:48
cooldown expires, you'll get a bonus or things that will adjust
8:53
like base level abilities that aren't part of the big button
8:57
that you'll you'll press so that you'll they're again putting
9:00
that damage outside of the cooldown windows.
9:03
Now, Sean, going over to you, tank bonuses are a different
9:09
thing, but tank rotation I don't think has been really that
9:13
bursty. So I'm going to lean on, I guess
9:15
the your experience with your team and with your mage.
9:20
What do you think about burst versus not burst?
9:24
That's a great question and I I think my answers probably going
9:29
to be unpopular with a lot of people, but I believe it to be
9:32
true in much the same way that I believe a lot of these changes
9:37
are designed to make the game more accessible.
9:42
So right now, if you have a class that is heavily reliant on
9:45
its burst window, elemental shaman, unholy death night, they
9:49
look great when they're in that window and they have the full
9:53
time to do the rotation before the mobs die.
9:56
And they do. There's the proper amount of
9:58
mobs pulled for that rotation. Or if it's overrated, it's a
10:01
single boss and they execute that rotation correctly.
10:05
If any of those four things are missing, you mess up your
10:08
rotation, you're dumpstered. It's basically a you, you, you,
10:11
you might as well write it off. You're in the, you're in the
10:13
dumpster. If the pack is dying when your
10:16
cooldowns come up, like the tanks not pulling around your
10:19
specific cooldowns, that's a problem.
10:22
And if the enemies die ahead of time, that's a problem.
10:26
By removing the the emphasis on DPS hitting the cooling windows,
10:30
I believe yes, it does make those moments outside of those
10:33
windows feel better for classes. Elemental Shaman.
10:35
I play with an elemental shaman every single day.
10:39
He literally does less damage than I do if he's not in
10:42
ascendance like it is. It's not a joke, it's not a
10:45
meme. He does less than tank damage
10:47
when he's not in his cooldown window.
10:49
In his cooldown windows he's a golden lightning God, but with
10:53
but without it he's not by so but by eliminating that.
10:56
So classes like Frostmage. Frostmage doesn't really have
10:59
cooldowns. They essentially have buttons to
11:01
press every 30 seconds because of the Cdr they get from other
11:04
talents. That gives them a very flat
11:06
damage curve, which means a mistake isn't as big a deal.
11:11
Having a tank not pull around specific 2 minute cooldowns or
11:15
minute and a half cooldowns isn't as big a deal because they
11:17
always have buttons to press. This change will be good for
11:21
those players who a don't perfectly execute a rotation
11:25
because now it'll be less punishing on them when they do.
11:28
People who pug into groups and don't always know what packs the
11:31
tank is going to pull and when, which is anybody who pugs.
11:34
And I think it'll be it'll overall make the, the mythic
11:40
plus, like the LFG mythic plus world more accessible in an
11:44
easier time and people will succeed in more keys because
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there will be less swings for failure based on any of those
11:51
factors. So I, I think ultimately it's a
11:53
good thing. Now you're going to have people
11:56
say this is awful. Where's my skill expression?
11:59
I want those big damage numbers. I can play well, my tank pulls
12:02
around this, and for those individuals it might feel worse,
12:07
but this is better for the health of the game overall
12:10
because I would argue to say 95% of the population isn't properly
12:15
executing their rotation inside their cooldowns every time they
12:18
press those buttons. I would say 100% of the
12:21
population don't hit everything right 100% of the time.
12:27
But like I playing as an elemental shaman, whatever dumps
12:32
their tear you want to put me into Like you will have those
12:36
big burst windows which are three minutes without without a
12:41
talent. You have the talent so that you
12:44
get that 2 minute burst and caused one spec that like more
12:50
that worked better with that cooldown run hero talent that
12:53
worked better with that cooldown to basically dominate the other
12:56
one that didn't quite work with that as well.
13:00
That shift. Maybe we see the return of
13:02
Farseer. That would allow some people who
13:05
like Farseer versus versus the Stormbringer to like get back
13:11
into elemental. But also it means that like some
13:15
of the weird complexities go away.
13:19
Pulling Maelstrom for the next pole so that you get to use your
13:23
spenders early so that you can get your rotation moving is a
13:26
big thing because like without your ascendants, you are very
13:31
dry resource dry for for certain pools.
13:35
Being able to like, like you said, not have to worry about
13:40
like, oh geez, I guess I have to be garbage for this pack because
13:44
the big pool is coming up is is a big thing and like when to
13:51
start saving your cooldowns, when to start pulling your mana.
13:53
Yeah, those are those are skill expression stuff.
13:57
But those things still exist even when your cooldown isn't
14:03
90% of your damage. If it's just like a 30% boost
14:08
and they shift, they shift certain things so that you don't
14:11
have to lot line up everything into that one window.
14:15
Like then you can make a decision like, hey, is it better
14:17
to like split this up a bit? Like, as it stands right now, it
14:21
is live for 15 seconds every two minutes and then hope that Sean
14:28
doesn't bitch about your interrupts in the meantime.
14:33
That's it. That's right.
14:34
You'd think you would at least interrupt in that 2 minutes and
14:37
45 seconds when you're doing no damage, no?
14:41
No like I got a pool mails from for the next.
14:45
Poor Lex over here having to heal through all these bolt
14:47
casts. But it's OK because my taste is
14:52
going to increase a little. My worst fat.
14:56
But yeah, there are of course these tear sets that were also
15:01
introduced. Again, like I said before, the
15:04
tear sets are set up in a way so that they are not putting that
15:08
burst damage back into into cool downs.
15:13
They are things that will say that like after you use a cool
15:16
down, you will get a buff that will help you you outside of
15:20
that cooldown, maybe get you back into that cooldown.
15:23
We've seen things like this before Enhancement Shaw back at
15:28
the Galaggio, the liberation of undermine had a had one that it
15:35
extended or overlapped your your cool down to make you get a
15:39
generally flat damage profile. But you would have spiked
15:44
because certain times you get more overlaps, you'd get those
15:47
bursts and you have to react to those windows.
15:48
So there's many different ways that they can they go about
15:51
this. Of course, some of this might be
15:55
a little hard for people who don't have the exact knowledge
15:59
of like what their spec does. But of course, Bill guide
16:02
writers will come out and tell you how this all works going
16:06
from our current tier into our into the next tier.
16:12
How are you guys feeling in terms of like your spec for, I
16:17
guess protection warrior Sean, how are you feeling?
16:21
I feel pretty good. I mean, part warrior is is
16:23
steady, right? It's, it's, it, it require an
16:27
act of God, I think for prot Warrior not to feel the way prot
16:29
warrior has felt since like, I don't know, BFA.
16:33
It just feels steady. It's, there's not many changes
16:35
coming for prot Warrior. We might play Colossus instead
16:37
of mountain thing. That's the biggest change.
16:39
So we're all gonna be 5% bigger. But yeah, it feels pretty good.
16:44
The set bonuses for, for, I mean, I looked at a few of the
16:47
tanks, the ones that I know well, prot warrior, prot
16:49
Paladin, guardian Druid, and they're not like super
16:53
impactful. They're not changing my rotation
16:54
like Prot warriors. Revenges increases the damage of
16:57
shield slam. Well I'm already shield slamming
16:58
on cooldown so it's not like it's increasing a button I was
17:01
rarely pressing. Like I literally spam shield
17:03
slam so their set bonuses aren't as impactful.
17:08
They don't really change the rotation in any way.
17:11
Even guardian druid it's you know thrash can spawn thorns.
17:14
Well I'm already thrashing. The only change there is mango
17:17
can proc extra damage. So now I might press mango as
17:20
opposed to never pressing it. Well, I definitely will because
17:22
they're changing lunar beam anyway.
17:24
Yeah, it feels, they feel fine. Thanks.
17:26
I think tanks it's been it's been a while since tanks have
17:29
had like a big major rework and I'm OK with it.
17:32
I like comfy. We are an expansion away from
17:36
when they were like shifting threat issues again, going right
17:40
back to liberation of undermine. There were some threat issues
17:45
there. Do you find that, like with this
17:49
damage focus instead of survivability focus buffs, that
17:53
they're doing that the threat's going to be fine?
17:56
Do you feel like threat was going to be fine anyways?
17:59
I think it was the 90% increase threat modifier they gave us
18:02
that. Probably the threat was going to
18:03
be fine anyways. Yeah, yeah, I am glad.
18:06
Now don't get me wrong, I 100% Fasdev if you're listening 100%
18:09
of the time. Every tank that I know, every
18:11
single tank that I know. If our tier sets are proc based
18:16
things, we will always want that to be damaged.
18:19
No tank that is worth their weight in salt wants unreliable
18:25
RNG based defensive procs. We want to be able to plan our
18:29
defensives, control our defensives, and know when we
18:32
have defensives. A random proc of shield wall
18:36
might as well be like, it could happen at the end of a path like
18:38
those are so awful. So that it's a, it has been a
18:42
switch over to to damage procs and damage things.
18:45
And that's great. And that's, I think all tanks
18:47
would prefer that. If obviously there's going to be
18:50
a tank who's going to listen to this and be like, no, I like
18:52
random shield wall procs 'cause I think they're great.
18:54
That tank's probably a bad tank. So if you're writing that, I
18:56
just want you to know I think you're probably a bad tank, but
18:58
that's OK. You could be bad tanks.
19:00
I'm a bad DPS. So what happens?
19:03
OK. All right.
19:05
Lex, you were talking about some confusion with your tier set, so
19:10
maybe we go a little bit more into the weeds with this.
19:12
What? What exactly is this the tier
19:15
bonuses that you're getting? So for wholly, the two set bonus
19:19
is every target, like every person affected by my renew is
19:22
going to increase my haste by 2% up to 6%.
19:26
And the four set bonus is renew healing is going to be increased
19:28
by 10% and lights resurgence now has a 100% chance to leave a
19:32
renew on the first target. Prayer of bending heels.
19:36
I'm feeling very validated because when I was supposed to
19:38
be paying attention to this podcast, I was instead reading
19:40
forum comments and everyone. Agrees.
19:42
This makes no. Sense first of all, haste is the
19:45
like bottom of our staff priority, like for a holy
19:49
priest, almost all of our like our cooldowns come up real fast,
19:53
right? I mean then, then you know, like
19:54
there's my general vibe, right is the word.
19:58
We're essentially either like instant cast, like our flash
20:01
heel. We have the two.
20:03
I think that's I know the picture, the little blue hand,
20:06
the little blue hand. We have two stacks of those and
20:10
that comes up relatively quick, I guess, I guess, yeah, that
20:12
could be renewing faster. That would be sick.
20:14
But other than that, it's like we also have like our two-minute
20:17
cool downs, right? So yeah, if you cut that down
20:19
hot, but by and large, none of us care about haste.
20:23
Haste is our dump stat. So that doesn't really help.
20:26
Also, renew is not a spell we cast, right?
20:30
It's a, it's a thing that we, it's, it's going with our holy
20:33
word. It's going with other things,
20:35
which is why I got really confused when I read this
20:37
because I legitimately thought like, I, I, I knew that renew
20:39
would sometimes show up on people, but like, I don't really
20:42
know why, right? It's just, it's, oh, and
20:44
suddenly it's a little green. Cool.
20:45
Sick. So this isn't really a thing.
20:49
I mean, yeah, I guess that maybe would make me pay more attention
20:51
to the spells that make me cast renew.
20:54
But like, they're also assuming I'm remembering which spell is
20:59
which. Yeah, the, the spell that puts
21:02
the renew on people is one of the two little blue hands.
21:05
That's name I can't remember. So like I'm using those
21:10
essentially I'm cool down anyway, right?
21:11
Like I'm at least making sure I'm not over capping it.
21:14
So this doesn't really feel like much and what it's giving
21:17
doesn't really benefit me. And I mean, also, I guess I
21:21
don't really feel like like as a holy priest overall, healing
21:25
through renew isn't really helpful because if I'm going to
21:29
be healing people, I'm just gonna be like bumping them up,
21:32
right? Like that's kind of how holy
21:33
priest goes. We're not a, you know, put your
21:37
hots on people and call it a day, right?
21:39
If I see someone injured, I'm going to make them uninjured.
21:41
That it's my job. So I.
21:45
I, I just want to, I want to jump in a bit.
21:49
So some of the, some of the changes, especially with like
21:53
yours and with elemental shamans, I'm not going to give
21:56
the details of that. Some of them you can't analyze
22:00
exactly based on where we are right now because they are
22:04
adjusting mob damage and player health in the next tier to
22:10
further adjust things so that they're not doing spike damage
22:16
and that you're you're going to have to heal to keep to top
22:22
people off. If you're not yo yoing in
22:25
somebody's health right back to full in a single button press, a
22:30
short burst window of of haste to allow you to do that triage
22:35
faster can be useful in that moment.
22:39
Healers in general typically don't like specking haste.
22:44
You don't want to be casting your spells faster.
22:47
Normally you want your heels to be more potent when you do cast
22:52
them, but in a period of the damage, being able to like get a
22:59
short window of haste so that you can hit the people the heels
23:04
faster and that your heart will take those people up faster can
23:10
be beneficial. It could I mean, I guess I'm
23:14
maybe I'm I'm not being honest with my own play style, because
23:17
if the two that are giving me renew are gonna be prayer of
23:19
mending, which is like I don't, I don't even look when I'm
23:22
casting prayer of mending, right, like that is just
23:24
wherever my mouse happens to be. When I get the Ding, the prayer
23:26
of mending is up. They get prayer of mending
23:28
right. It's gonna jump around,
23:29
especially in raids or like any time that like like it's gonna
23:32
jump around. It doesn't matter, right.
23:34
So I'm not paying any attention to that.
23:36
And holy word, Serenity Blue hand, is that OK?
23:41
That actually is a little bit more of a fairpoint, right?
23:43
If that's putting a little bit of renew on people and also
23:48
increasing my haste, that is closer to an emergency heel
23:50
since it is a pretty chunky heel.
23:51
So that is an argument I would buy.
23:55
I don't know that I love tying it to a thing that's like 2
23:59
steps removed from my actual, I guess one step removed from my
24:02
actual spells, right? Like again, we don't think about
24:06
renew. It's not like I'm like I'm
24:07
casting this and renew will go on them.
24:09
I had to like go back into my, you know, talent list to try to
24:13
figure out where renew even comes from, which maybe is kind
24:18
of the point. I mean, if they're saying if
24:20
they're saying they want us to be interacting with them more,
24:22
like maybe what they want is they want me to think about
24:24
renew a little bit stronger. I don't want to, but I mean,
24:28
whatever. I'd already just whined about
24:30
the fact in they're making havoc demon hunters back into essence
24:32
break. So, like, I love whining.
24:34
Clearly. Yeah, I'm being kind of a
24:36
negative Nancy. I'm hearing that in my voice now
24:38
that I, now that I listen, I, I, I mean, honestly, I don't think
24:44
it's going to change my holy priest play style, right?
24:47
I, I, I think mostly it's just, I don't get it.
24:49
I don't understand why that's what they chose to do.
24:51
And so I'm being kind of a jerk about it.
24:54
If I'm gonna be a little a little mean, I do wanna make a,
24:56
a, a silly little joke that it's funny that they're saying they
24:59
don't want it to be bursty. And then Havoc, they were like,
25:01
So what we're gonna give you is the burst damage.
25:04
That's gonna be bigger, right? You're gonna burst so much
25:06
harder. You can burst a little longer,
25:08
sick, Which I'm being, I'm being kind of mean because like, yeah,
25:13
like I just said that Havoc is a really burst heavy speck.
25:15
And I think that it's fair for us to have some burst heavy
25:17
specks. I think it's super valid.
25:18
I think what else are you gonna buff, right?
25:19
And Havoc, you're gonna buff the burst.
25:21
We are a burst class sick. We love it.
25:23
We're all. What?
25:25
We could buff glide. You could if you buff vengeful
25:28
retreat and you made everyone I take it back.
25:30
They should force you to stack into things and they should
25:32
force everyone to stack into an inertia build and they should
25:34
make it so that you get so much better when you do your little
25:36
vengeful retreat and then fell rush back in.
25:38
That is the reason I love havoc Demon Hunter and I will do it.
25:40
I do it in mythic plus. I don't care.
25:42
I do not care how stressed my tank is.
25:44
I don't care that I make my tanks pull the entire pack.
25:45
It's so fun I I miss havoc A. Little I I also I also kinda
25:52
like your priest set bonus because it has a little bit of
25:58
versatility. Like yes, when you're doing that
26:00
healing, the haste may not be the top thing on your mind and
26:05
putting that renew is something that you have to look at, but
26:09
that haste can then turn into like faster smites.
26:11
You're like, OK, let me make sure that I'm keeping like the
26:14
the renews on three people. And then I'm just going to like
26:16
smite, smite, smite, smite, smite.
26:17
OK crap, I got to go back to healing so that like.
26:20
Taste like. It's only 6%, it's 2% per renew
26:25
and then when you have 3 renews it caps out at the 6% paste
26:29
bonus that you're getting. So it's not I.
26:32
Don't think anybody's even going to feel that difference in
26:35
casts. I don't that takes a 2 second
26:37
cast to a 1.9 second cast. I guess Basically, yeah.
26:41
It's. Like if you catch somebody about
26:42
to drop, you'll, you'll be thankful for it, right?
26:46
I feel like, so I mean just pretty specifically, if
26:49
somebody's in danger like that, you have like 100 instant cast
26:52
spells that you would send before you would think of
26:54
casting something hard casting, right?
26:56
What? Anyways, I don't know.
26:58
Priests all. About does prepares our self
26:59
heal I mean yeah we have like our guardian spirit we do like.
27:03
What is it? Power Word.
27:04
Serenity. Instant Cast.
27:06
It's instant cast. Yeah, we we have very few sit
27:09
and casts. And don't you get free casts of
27:11
flash flash heal? Isn't it instant cast of flash
27:14
heal? I.
27:15
Just feel like. Yeah, I, I, this is, again, I'm
27:18
just kind of like scrolling on the forms.
27:20
This is very unpopular. I well, and the other thing is
27:25
Manny's like, oh, well, you could like, you know, gain this
27:27
system and like, here's what I need to haste.
27:29
But both of the spells put renew on people are just like, they're
27:33
just part of my core rotation, right?
27:35
Like, I, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna keep my prayer of
27:37
ending up. I'm gonna keep my holy word
27:39
serenity uncapped. I'm I I'm not gonna like I I I
27:44
don't know. I again, I really just kind of
27:45
think it's nothing right? Like I'm being a little bit like
27:48
mean about it. I don't, I don't think it's, I
27:51
mean. Then like that, that would be a
27:53
complaint about the numbers itself.
27:55
I don't think that they want you to get like 10% per person so
28:00
that you're like constantly powered and fused with 30%
28:03
running. Clearly that's not what they
28:05
want, so it's got to be downwards from there. 6% seems
28:10
like a small general boost to your throughput, both healing
28:15
and damage, but like it could go up from there.
28:17
Like do you do you like if it was 3% per then that caps at 99
28:22
Percent is like more than half a A.
28:26
Or just make it crit something they want.
28:30
Oh yeah man, give me credit. Love that.
28:32
I will also say, again, comparing the two that I know,
28:38
Havoc is getting a 12% increase damage of Blade Dance, Chaos
28:42
Strike and Essence Break, which are like the core spells, like
28:48
I'm not tripping out Blade Dance and Chaos Strike.
28:49
Those are just the two buttons you press, right?
28:51
So they're just getting essentially a flat 12% buff and
28:55
essence Brake increases like it is 2 seconds longer.
28:59
Essence Brake is like the entrance entrance to our big
29:02
burst damage. So we have two seconds longer of
29:04
burst damage. We have 25% increase initial
29:07
strike damage on top of that 12%.
29:09
Like I guess it just actually comparing these two, it also
29:15
just kind of feels sort of weak like the best I guess that is my
29:19
renew healing is increased by 10% and renew healing is just
29:23
like carry over healing. Like that's not really a like
29:26
can help me in emergencies. You've got a thing that if you
29:32
maintain it, you have a flat 6% buff the entirety of the time
29:37
versus particular things that give you windows of damage,
29:40
right. So the magnitude of a flat buff
29:43
versus like that window is obviously going to be different,
29:46
like elemental shamans getting 25% to its spenders.
29:51
So like the Earth shock, the earthquake, the elemental blast,
29:55
25% extra damage on your two set bonus, which is higher than a
30:00
6%. But it's only when I'm playing
30:02
those spenders. There's other complications,
30:06
aftershocks sort of stuff that that means that number is
30:09
different. But like, yeah, you're going to
30:10
see things that are particular windows of time versus like a
30:16
flat maintenance being different.
30:18
Maybe you just don't like the flat maintenance, 'cause then
30:20
it's like, yeah, I'm never gonna feel bad.
30:22
Yeah, well, I I would argue the play dance and chaos striker
30:25
flat maintenance, but no, I I hear what you're saying yeah, I
30:29
mean like again, I just don't to be honest, though like if you
30:33
like we're like, hey, we're actually doing a pop quiz.
30:35
What's your tier set bonus? This tier could not tell you to
30:39
save my damn life. So like, you know, I am I really
30:44
going to care about am I going to care about this in an hour?
30:46
No, right. Like it's, it's not that big of
30:48
a deal. I I don't think it's great, but
30:51
I haven't run the numbers right. I don't know how it actually
30:53
stems out. It's not going to change whether
30:55
or not I choose to play holy priest or what, like, you know,
30:58
whatever. I'm looking at our we have a Are
31:03
you holy? I know you're just like I was
31:06
trying to find, I was checking to see if it was if our priest
31:09
was playing holy to see what percentage of her heels were
31:12
renew, but she's playing discipline.
31:15
Somebody said in the forums who I'm just going to trust purely,
31:20
it's about 5 to 8% of our output.
31:23
OK. To be fair also well, I know we
31:28
just got a buff. I've been told holy is weak
31:31
right now. I just play whatever I want.
31:32
I don't play with enough people to like be able to cross
31:34
compare. I'm assuming that the reason
31:36
that I tend to be bottom of my healing meters is because
31:38
everyone else has been doing it for a lot longer than me in a
31:40
better gear. Could possible that it's you
31:42
know, like so I my understanding is that holy kind of is hurting
31:47
for help right now and but again, we did just get buffed or
31:51
we are getting buffed. I don't know we do is where
31:54
there's buffs coming or have occurred already.
31:57
The holy priest buffs will be in existence now or potentially
32:01
some other time, so who know? Again, I really like this is the
32:06
longest I've ever thought about any tier set bonus in my life,
32:11
so I'm nitpicking with numbers that I don't really know how to
32:14
like, you know, calculate out long term.
32:17
All right. Well sort of an aside, but a
32:19
complication is something we were talking about last week.
32:22
Care set bonuses in season 1 where something that people went
32:28
super fast to get their four set.
32:31
They would get a drop hopefully from the from the first week in
32:39
the raid. They would pull pull one from
32:41
their vault. People would go into LFR, they
32:44
would get their AOTC or Keystone Master to get a charge and they
32:50
would get their four set ASAP. But then we started talking
32:54
about make sure you grab your bonus rolls and stuff.
32:57
There's going to be again that math thing where it's like when
33:01
there always is when you break your, your tear set.
33:03
Is your, is it OK to go 2 and two or do you want to hold off
33:07
to get the four set? There's also going to be now a
33:10
math of how much do you delay milking those bonus rolls if the
33:15
tear set drops and tear sets this tear wow tear sets in 12.1
33:24
are going to be operating differently than they have in
33:26
the past. When you get the token, you'll
33:29
get a tier set with its bone, with its bonuses and so forth,
33:35
and the specific secondary stats.
33:37
If you roll a tertiary stat, so be it, but if you take a piece
33:42
of gear and put it in the catalyst, the tier set will
33:46
retain the secondary stats of the piece that you turned into
33:52
into the tear. So now there might be people who
33:58
are looking for particular pieces from that are off tear
34:02
pieces from like mythic plus or other things, or from other
34:10
bosses within the same raid. But if it gets from the boss in
34:15
the raid, I don't think you can catalyze it right?
34:18
You can catalyze, yeah, you can catalyze a ton of stuff.
34:22
Like I think you can catalyze robots drops, yes.
34:26
You can catalyze delve stuff. Yeah, you can.
34:27
You 100% catalyze from RAID. OK, the raid one was the the
34:31
only thing I was thinking about. But anyways, so there might be a
34:35
thing where we've now got a longer tail on people getting
34:38
their tears set where they take their token, they get their
34:43
token to like yeah, I'm happy for that.
34:45
Or it comes in the in the great vault.
34:50
But then there is a actual best in slot item that is only best
34:55
in slot when you take it, when you get it and then catalyze it.
34:59
So we might have a longer tail on itemization for tear sets.
35:06
Is this something that like you would be happy about or sad
35:11
about John? I don't understand the question.
35:16
Am I happy or sad about the stats not changing when I
35:19
catalyst? Stats.
35:20
The stats changing Yo you're happy about this change?
35:25
Yeah. So it's like 5050, right?
35:27
So I'm happy that if I have a piece that's good.
35:29
So let's say for example, I had the plate gloves from Seat of
35:35
the Travert that have the cantrip of extra shadow damage
35:38
on them and I needed a piece for tear.
35:41
I could catalyze those. They would keep their haze 1st
35:43
and I would keep my cantrip and that's nice.
35:45
That feels good. This will allow you to farm
35:49
pieces out of mythic plus or the vault or through bonus rules
35:53
that have a stat optimization that is more favorable to you so
35:57
that you can then catalyze them and use them.
35:59
And this doesn't work just for tier pieces.
36:00
This is bracers, boots, belt, cloak, all of that.
36:04
So the only problem is the way that it works now is I can
36:09
correct stats in a bad piece. So let's say I get a a chess
36:13
piece that's versatility of mastery.
36:15
But my tier set chest is haste mastery and that's a better
36:18
combo for me. I can convert it to haste
36:20
mastery. So I lose the ability to correct
36:23
poorly stated items, but I gain the ability to properly stat my
36:28
tier sets. And as we know, different specs
36:30
in different specs of each class want different stat priorities.
36:35
Fury warriors, I think it's mastery haste, whereas arms and
36:38
prot are crit haste. So now you're not locked into
36:41
one set of stats for tier set. You can customize it.
36:44
So I think that's a positive. But I do think losing the
36:46
ability to correct bad stats on an item is is kind of a bummer,
36:51
but there's one away the other. I think probably it makes it
36:54
better because now if you play multiple specs, you have that
36:57
option to do it. I don't think it's slow gearing.
37:00
I think if anything, that tier set acquisition is going to be
37:02
faster because the catalyst charges that you get from doing
37:08
content this season are starting to drop from day one next
37:12
season. So you don't have to complete
37:15
your four set before you can start earning those catalyst
37:17
charges. The achievement still exists
37:20
that when you complete your four set, but it doesn't unlock the
37:23
ability for me to drop. It increases the frequency of
37:25
them dropping. So if you're doing a lot of
37:28
content, which a lot of sweaty neck beards are at the beginning
37:32
of the season, you're going to be able to get 4 piece probably
37:34
in that first week anyway. So if you're if you're somebody
37:37
who was getting it in week 1 or Week 2 before, you might be able
37:40
to get it faster this time around.
37:43
Yeah. So I think it's, I mean, the
37:44
changes it's got a positive and a negative to it.
37:47
I don't feel either way about it because I really only play prod.
37:49
So I don't it'll just be nice to know that I can if let's say the
37:53
the shoulders are, you know, crit mastery and I don't really
37:56
care for that. I will just be able to find
37:58
better shoulders somewhere and and convert those.
38:00
So I think it's, I think it's, yeah, it's whatever.
38:03
All right, Lex, you and your team are going to be concerned
38:07
about this or just moving on with your lives.
38:09
I think just moving on with our lives, I think everyone is
38:12
already either like the type of pusher who's doing like high
38:15
level stat priorities or someone like me who's like number big,
38:20
great. OK, we're going to go with that.
38:22
So you know, like it's not going to fundamentally it it might
38:24
change things a little bit for me if I'm paying a little bit
38:27
more attention to what I'm catalyzing, but realistically
38:29
I'm going to be chasing four piece and whatever got to be 4
38:32
piece. What I'll do.
38:33
Although actually that is a very interesting that that is
38:36
probably going to change the calculus of what I do catalyze.
38:38
So yeah, and I I think it could potentially I don't think it's
38:42
going to fundamentally change my mindset on anything too much.
38:45
I think it's, I think it, it might mean the gearing is a
38:48
little bit more relevant long term, which I know is one of the
38:50
bigger fears that my, like I've, I've heard some people say about
38:54
the bonus rules is that it makes the like gear that's being
38:56
dropped less meaningful. But if you are doing a little
39:01
bit more stat priority chasing, maybe that'll make it a little
39:04
bit more meaningful to get random loot.
39:06
But by and large, I don't I, I, I, I think it's an interesting
39:09
choice. I'd love to have been in the
39:11
room when they were making that decision because again, I'm I'm
39:13
just like not 100% for why that was the call they made.
39:17
But I don't think it's like a bad call, right?
39:19
I'm not like unhappy that that's what they ended up deciding to
39:21
do. I don't have strong feelings
39:22
about it either way. Are you worried about it, Manny?
39:27
I think that like, as Sean said, we're getting the catalyst
39:30
charges immediately from stuff. So like it.
39:35
I've never felt lacking for catalyst charges.
39:38
There's been times where I've been like, oh, I better put
39:40
something on because I've hit the cap.
39:42
It's to be almost the opposite way.
39:44
I just feel like I like the chase of particular gear.
39:51
I, I feel like the, the biggest issue I'm going to have is going
39:59
to be the something will drop in the vault that's got the exact
40:06
right stats and then going back to that bonus rule situation
40:09
where it's like. Oh, I wish I could freeze this
40:11
or am I going to like delay sort of thing?
40:13
I think it's just it's going to be that math that I was
40:16
complaining about last week, but that's that's about it.
40:21
Moving on from the gear and gearing woes, we've got
40:25
something that is new integration.
40:31
Discord is going to have an integration where you can have a
40:35
particular Discord channel that will be integrated with your
40:39
Guild chat if your Guild leaders decide that they're going to do
40:43
that. So this is going to be.
40:50
It feels like Blizzard's always just a little bit late to the
40:53
perfect answer because like back in the day, they're like, yeah,
40:58
we're going to have these communities and it's going to
41:01
be, it's going to be fine and you won't need Discord.
41:03
And it was like, you're going to need Discord.
41:05
Everybody's using Discord. And now there's everybody
41:08
complaining about like ID verifications and blah, blah,
41:11
blah. And now maybe Discord's not
41:13
going to be the thing. And here comes my, I'll be like,
41:15
we're doing Discord integration, but ignoring all of that.
41:20
I'd love this. I there are times where it's
41:23
like, oh, something's happening or I'm like, maybe I'm in in
41:27
game, or maybe I'm not in game and being able to connect with
41:32
those people is I love it. So I'm really glad for this.
41:36
Much better than selfie Cam. Thank you, Blizzard.
41:41
Lex, what about you? Is this something that the
41:43
Timbermal Tavern might take advantage of?
41:45
Oh yeah, I think this could be incredible.
41:47
I think we, we, we are a very like a Guild that is, is happy
41:53
to do things as people want to do things, but we're also all,
41:58
you know, busy. And so we're rarely like sitting
42:00
on the game doing content waiting for people to join a
42:04
mythic plus, right. So there's a lot of like like
42:08
switching between like, oh, I got to go message and discord
42:10
and then like while I'm saying, oh, we need another DPS, someone
42:13
else comes in and I'm like, oh, wait, like it just, it's not
42:16
that big of a deal, but it's a lot of coordination.
42:18
And so I think if we could make it so everyone is just chatting
42:21
in one channel and it, you know, you don't have to be online to
42:23
see that Channel. And you also so don't have to be
42:26
doing something off the game. Like, you know, often one person
42:29
will be the one who's coordinating in the Discord and
42:31
like trying to feed that back to the people who are doing stuff
42:33
and guilt chat. And I, yeah, I think it's a big
42:35
win. I do remember when they
42:37
introduced communities and we were like, oh, like we were so
42:39
excited about that. Maybe it was like me and like
42:42
three other people. We were like, yeah, we're
42:43
totally going to make communities happy.
42:45
And it happened. That's going to be so great.
42:46
It's going to be such a great way to connect.
42:48
So, you know, rest in peace to communities.
42:51
But yeah, no, I'm, I, I think this is going to be really good
42:55
for us. Go Blizzard.
42:59
Yeah, big positive, big positive.
43:02
It's it's time, right, We need it, It's time.
43:05
It's we're already just guilds already shifted to discord.
43:09
The Guild chat is essentially non existent in most places.
43:13
So any way to to tie that together is is a win.
43:16
Yeah, I do think it is odd that they didn't tie it to
43:20
communities because like there are definitely communities that
43:24
I think this would be great in. Secret finders.
43:26
If they're like in game doing something and they're like, oh,
43:29
and it goes right into their discord, that'd be awesome.
43:32
Though you would need to be in a Guild instead of a community
43:36
like a. That seems odd.
43:38
There are different key find key finding groups like the many
43:43
that we've talked about before. Similar thing.
43:46
Would be great to have those communities linked with their
43:49
discord. So the fact that it isn't linked
43:51
with community, she feels like a strange gap there.
43:56
Oh, this does also have the weird issue where it's like
44:01
administrator and GM LED would you mean, I guess how else would
44:04
you do it, right? But I can't imagine a world
44:07
where like there's bad blood and a Guild master gets removed or
44:13
like the one person has administrator, one person has
44:15
Guild lead, one of the two people you know, gets kicked out
44:19
of the Guild. And then all of a sudden there's
44:20
a like huge like, Oh, I gotta like message this person hates
44:23
me to try to figure out to like hand this over, which almost
44:26
certainly wouldn't happen. And that is much more of a like
44:29
as an XRP or like that's the type of drama that we would have
44:32
been having much love to to my RP friends.
44:37
So I I can imagine drama coming up, but like, also, what else do
44:43
you do? Right, Like you can't just make
44:46
it so that the Guild makes its own discord channel or
44:48
something. Like there's always ways that
44:50
people can cause low masses. I honestly I think that mutual
44:55
consent from Guild leader or officer that has permissions
44:59
with admin and or mod that has permissions on discord to make
45:03
it link but any party on either side can disconnect it soon as
45:07
it's like we want out breaks the link and that's it.
45:10
That way you can't be forced to continue a link that one side
45:16
that has the controls doesn't want.
45:18
But yeah, John, you said this is good all around, so I'm happy,
45:25
happy for that. Any thoughts of what else they
45:29
could do in terms of socials? I feel like, wow, sort of like
45:34
doing everything that really needs to do.
45:35
This is great, but I hadn't even thought of it.
45:37
I can't even think of what else I would want them to do.
45:43
Guild hulls I guess would make things social for the people
45:45
that are in the housing but yeah, I don't know Warcraft I I
45:52
I think that the decline in the quality of the Warcraft
45:58
community as a whole is strongly tied to like in the way we treat
46:03
each other the way we talk about each other.
46:06
You know the way we don't allow parents to do our mythic plus
46:09
keys because people have abducted my family and if we
46:12
don't time the 17, they're going to kill them like it's or
46:16
whatever reason anyway that that went.
46:19
A little far, but OK. Yeah, but I, I tie, I tie that
46:24
directly to the failure of the American family.
46:27
No, I, I tie it directly to the the breakdown in guilts and how
46:34
like predominant guilds were early on and it and it and it
46:39
necessarily didn't make the game a better spot because there's
46:41
lots of bad actors at that time too.
46:43
But as we moved away from that, as people were able to become
46:46
more anonymous in game like they are online, a lot of that
46:51
negativity crept into our LFGS, crept into our pugs, crept into
46:55
the way we treat each other. And, and even now in some Guild,
46:58
you're in a Guild and it's like, you know, you're sending
47:01
whispers back and forth with your buddy talking about how
47:03
shitty your tanks are. Like, Oh my God, these guys, We
47:05
would have killed this already if our tanks weren't such dog
47:08
shit. And I, I think the breakdown of
47:12
the Guild and, and of the game as a social construct has led to
47:16
that. So I hope Discord bring some of
47:18
that back. But I do think that finding a
47:22
way to make guilds matter again, finding a way to drive more
47:28
people to be part of A to join a community and be part of a
47:30
community and feel like they belong somewhere can only be
47:35
beneficial for the game. So hopefully discord helps.
47:38
The discord helps, but I also desperately hope it's not the
47:41
only step downside. I'm also not a dev and I have no
47:44
idea how to fix this. I'm neither a dev nor a
47:47
psychologist nor a what's the people that study people.
47:52
Sociologist. You know, is it anthropologist?
47:56
What's the one that like studies, like societies?
47:58
Sociologist. Or anthropologist.
48:00
OK, yeah, I'm not that either gang surprise.
48:03
So I don't know what the answer is other than blocking everyone
48:07
who's awful, which probably also is not helpful.
48:13
Yeah, I think there's a, a really tragic, sort of like self
48:16
fulfilling prophecy to where we have such a like reputation of
48:21
like World of Warcraft's kind of assholes.
48:23
And so people A, feel like they can be more assholes in World of
48:27
Warcraft and B, like, you know, people who are a little more
48:30
sensitive and a little more gentle won't even start playing
48:33
until the game gets more and more filled with assholes.
48:35
And like, you know, to be fair, we all have stories of bad
48:40
experiences, but overwhelmingly, right.
48:44
I've been fine. I've met nice people and had
48:47
good experiences and I, I love World of Warcraft and part of
48:51
that, like I will say many times over that an MMO is just a
48:55
community, right? That, that overwhelmingly what
48:58
makes an MMO and MMO and, and worth playing are the people in
49:01
it. That's why so many people start
49:02
and they're like, this is going to be the Wow killer.
49:04
And then it doesn't. And it's, it's usually not
49:06
because the gameplay sucks. It usually is not because the
49:08
story sucks. It's usually they just don't
49:11
have enough people to make it worth continuing.
49:13
And so people don't, and they go back to the biggest communities
49:16
they can find for the Final Fantasy in World of Warcraft.
49:19
Yeah, I mean, I think that you're both right.
49:22
There is, there is something about the autumnization, the
49:26
anonymity, the fact that people become far more replaceable when
49:33
you can just jump back into an LFGQ instead of form the group
49:38
and March out to the the stone both ways uphill or whatever
49:41
that they want to say. But bringing community together
49:47
I hopefully will be a good thing.
49:50
We will see soon, see. With that said though, if you
49:56
want to chat with our community, join us in a bit dot LY slash
50:00
faz discord because there will be no FAZ Guild.
50:05
And if you want to support us in everything we do for Azov will
50:09
always be free, but consider becoming a patron over at
50:13
patreon.com/faz Today. We'd like to thank all of our
50:18
patrons. You guys have been amazing and
50:21
we've gotten a lot of support recently and we appreciate that
50:24
we are putting out bonus episodes.
50:27
The patrons are getting that a little bit earlier.
50:31
Just on Monday, which is today as of this recording.
50:34
We put out an episode where I got to sit down with Aliandra's
50:38
K and talk a little bit about the lore.
50:40
Last week we had a nice cool sit down with late CE rating that
50:46
Sean did with Casey and his team.
50:51
And then of course soon we will have a little Faz After Dark
50:58
episode that will be coming out. But again, if you like all of
51:04
that stuff, join us in either discord at bit dot LY slash Faz
51:07
Discord or consider becoming a patron.
51:11
Until next time though guys, may all your hit be crits.