Server Patch Notes 20/07/2018

[Wyzard]

2hand SMs just got significantly tankier thanks to free vaul’s buffer, and heck, it frees up points for snb as well. A surprising change.

Adding bolstered enchantments to the core tactic is a good change too.

Looking forward to see what happens with heaven’s blade enchant. Thanks for looking at the SM class, much appreciated.

[catholicism198]

Tried out a couple hours of dps shammy to see if it was as bad as this thread was wanting me to believe (and yes disrupt sucks for them, I have been spamming that everywhere forever, no changes there). Was pleasantly surprised, I felt pretty useful in the build I tried out (2 morale pump tactics, insta rez, divine fury).

I think the change to how mechanic points are gained/lost makes it obvious we shouldn't be attempting to juggle anymore so no point in discussing it's viability IMO. As is, I can play like a dps and save up points to blow em later for decent groups heals when needed, while throwing out plenty more utility than most DPS bring thru insta rez, crazy good group morale pumping, aoe ele debuffing, aoe slow, ranged aoe knockbacks, resist buff, etc. My aoe heal usually does around 6-7k healing total for the cast (can get higher with crits n buffs), if you got 5 points saved up and everyone in your group is low then spamming aoe heal is a pretty useful option to have, or if you are retreating you are gonna be a lot more useful than a running Mara for your team with 5 good hots/shields to throw out + puddle. No we aren't gonna out DPS a BW/Sorc or outheal a healer but the flexibility is real nice so if you tend to play in pugs where perfect comp isn't important it seems like a viable choice to me atm.

Solo roam dps is probably still crap but that's not something devs balance around anyways. Yes we are squishy as hell and our self healing is terrible but that's what your group is for. Being able to insta rez healers everytime they go down usually ends up leading to more healing overall, and if you are good at it and let healers around you know you'll be on top of it it's a lot less wasted GCDs from multiple healers trying to rez same target.

Seems like enough utility to me to justify playing it, and has a pretty high skill ceiling IMO (as do most hybrids, having to juggle offensive targets and injured teammates at same time alone is a lot more targetting work than most classes deal with). Just my first impressions but seems like more of a buff than a nerf to me for dps spec group play if you play to it's strengths.

So you can do everything but DPS when you spec for DPS? Maybe they'll buff the mastery one day....

Juggling was one of the best changes Azarael made to the class. It's a shame it's gone.

It would be nice if they made it so that Divine Fury, or some other similar tactic, made it so that lifetap abilities would act as they did on live and heal based on the damage they do instead of basing it solely on your willpower.

[Foomy44]

Spoiler:

Tried out a couple hours of dps shammy to see if it was as bad as this thread was wanting me to believe (and yes disrupt sucks for them, I have been spamming that everywhere forever, no changes there). Was pleasantly surprised, I felt pretty useful in the build I tried out (2 morale pump tactics, insta rez, divine fury).

I think the change to how mechanic points are gained/lost makes it obvious we shouldn't be attempting to juggle anymore so no point in discussing it's viability IMO. As is, I can play like a dps and save up points to blow em later for decent groups heals when needed, while throwing out plenty more utility than most DPS bring thru insta rez, crazy good group morale pumping, aoe ele debuffing, aoe slow, ranged aoe knockbacks, resist buff, etc. My aoe heal usually does around 6-7k healing total for the cast (can get higher with crits n buffs), if you got 5 points saved up and everyone in your group is low then spamming aoe heal is a pretty useful option to have, or if you are retreating you are gonna be a lot more useful than a running Mara for your team with 5 good hots/shields to throw out + puddle. No we aren't gonna out DPS a BW/Sorc or outheal a healer but the flexibility is real nice so if you tend to play in pugs where perfect comp isn't important it seems like a viable choice to me atm.

Solo roam dps is probably still crap but that's not something devs balance around anyways. Yes we are squishy as hell and our self healing is terrible but that's what your group is for. Being able to insta rez healers everytime they go down usually ends up leading to more healing overall, and if you are good at it and let healers around you know you'll be on top of it it's a lot less wasted GCDs from multiple healers trying to rez same target.

Seems like enough utility to me to justify playing it, and has a pretty high skill ceiling IMO (as do most hybrids, having to juggle offensive targets and injured teammates at same time alone is a lot more targetting work than most classes deal with). Just my first impressions but seems like more of a buff than a nerf to me for dps spec group play if you play to it's strengths.

So you can do everything but DPS when you spec for DPS? Maybe they'll buff the mastery one day....

Juggling was one of the best changes Azarael made to the class. It's a shame it's gone.

It would be nice if they made it so that Divine Fury, or some other similar tactic, made it so that lifetap abilities would act as they did on live and heal based on the damage they do instead of basing it solely on your willpower.

I'm seeing 1400+ crits on Bunch o Waagh, Waaagh is Coming+ Bunch o Waagh on a dot'd target is pretty decent burst for a hybrid IMO. Don't think we need to have pure DPS class numbers to be considered balanced considering everything else we get. Also not saying DPS shammy is perfect and viable now in every setup but not buying that it was a global nerf, seems like a move in the right direction to me and I'm glad they are getting some changes.

[live4treasure]

Well, to make it work you need to be good enough to justify a spot in a group. Any spot, be it healer or DPS. 1400 crits are essentially only possible on slayers or severely undergeared or underleveled players with no guard, though. I've seen numbers like that only on unguarded Choppas, personally. When you hit actual targets, it'll look more like 700 and drop down to 550ish on dps tanks, and as low as 250-300 on full tanks, the dot damage drops down with it.

So while the healing isn't horrible, the question is: "is it worth bringing a squishy class that can't do as much damage as a dps class into a dps slot for the off-healing it provides?" Considering you see a number of 6 man groups with 2 tanks, 2 dps and 2 healers with no hybrids besides dps tanks be very close to unkillable and easily winning outnumbered fights and you find most dps AM/Shams roaming solo, the answer seems to be No. Although it should be noted that having a DPS shaman that can spam Da Waagh is coming with the help of choppas (if I'm not mistaken) buff to proc Mork's Touch as much as possible and making use of Nothing but Waaaagh as a 15% damage booster with a 45% uptime would likely work out in a bomb group, at least on paper.

[Foomy44]

13 point dps tree abilities are crap for AM/Shaman

Very happy to hear that's the dev position on em, looking forward to whatever changes happen there (and 15 pt spot hopefully)

[catholicism198]

Spoiler:

Tried out a couple hours of dps shammy to see if it was as bad as this thread was wanting me to believe (and yes disrupt sucks for them, I have been spamming that everywhere forever, no changes there). Was pleasantly surprised, I felt pretty useful in the build I tried out (2 morale pump tactics, insta rez, divine fury).

I think the change to how mechanic points are gained/lost makes it obvious we shouldn't be attempting to juggle anymore so no point in discussing it's viability IMO. As is, I can play like a dps and save up points to blow em later for decent groups heals when needed, while throwing out plenty more utility than most DPS bring thru insta rez, crazy good group morale pumping, aoe ele debuffing, aoe slow, ranged aoe knockbacks, resist buff, etc. My aoe heal usually does around 6-7k healing total for the cast (can get higher with crits n buffs), if you got 5 points saved up and everyone in your group is low then spamming aoe heal is a pretty useful option to have, or if you are retreating you are gonna be a lot more useful than a running Mara for your team with 5 good hots/shields to throw out + puddle. No we aren't gonna out DPS a BW/Sorc or outheal a healer but the flexibility is real nice so if you tend to play in pugs where perfect comp isn't important it seems like a viable choice to me atm.

Solo roam dps is probably still crap but that's not something devs balance around anyways. Yes we are squishy as hell and our self healing is terrible but that's what your group is for. Being able to insta rez healers everytime they go down usually ends up leading to more healing overall, and if you are good at it and let healers around you know you'll be on top of it it's a lot less wasted GCDs from multiple healers trying to rez same target.

Seems like enough utility to me to justify playing it, and has a pretty high skill ceiling IMO (as do most hybrids, having to juggle offensive targets and injured teammates at same time alone is a lot more targetting work than most classes deal with). Just my first impressions but seems like more of a buff than a nerf to me for dps spec group play if you play to it's strengths.

So you can do everything but DPS when you spec for DPS? Maybe they'll buff the mastery one day....

Juggling was one of the best changes Azarael made to the class. It's a shame it's gone.

It would be nice if they made it so that Divine Fury, or some other similar tactic, made it so that lifetap abilities would act as they did on live and heal based on the damage they do instead of basing it solely on your willpower.

I'm seeing 1400+ crits on Bunch o Waagh, Waaagh is Coming+ Bunch o Waagh on a dot'd target is pretty decent burst for a hybrid IMO. Don't think we need to have pure DPS class numbers to be considered balanced considering everything else we get. Also not saying DPS shammy is perfect and viable now in every setup but not buying that it was a global nerf, seems like a move in the right direction to me and I'm glad they are getting some changes.

Only global nerf was the disrupt/dot change; the change to life tap abilities happened long ago and everyone got along just fine- it's nothing new.
As for the mechanic change, that one affects the fluidity of the class...you could transition back and forth so seamlessly back when .ab ex was first introduced, now it feels so..... I shelved my Shaman anyways.

[live4treasure]

Genuinely happy to hear that it's on the agenda Torque, thank you.

[dshdf]

Intent is not to nerf and its under observation and 13 point dps tree abilities are crap for AM/Shaman

is there any talks about shaman disrupt striketrough also?

[anarchypark]

As for the mechanic change, that one affects the fluidity of the class...you could transition back and forth so seamlessly back when .ab ex was first introduced, now it feels so..... I shelved my Shaman anyways.

that was borderline OP.
juggling was the new mechanic. for 600~1k moving heal.
stacking mechanic points was felt like mistakes.
now those are gone, it's more reasonable mechanic.

[Telen]

Intent is not to nerf and its under observation and 13 point dps tree abilities are crap for AM/Shaman

is there any talks about shaman disrupt striketrough also?

You get some strikethrough from gettin smarter, you just have to get it on. Also it needs a more reliable AP drain. Whats needed is a tactic that makes Gettin Smarter and APdrain undefendable. Keeps the mirrors unique with the AM as a stationary backline healer with Wild Healing while the Shaman has to stay within drain range with it better kiting abilities.