[PTS] Patch Notes 28/02/2025

[georgehabadasher]

One thing about these changes that isn't being mentioned is that there are a lot of busy gamer dads & moms playing this game. They have busy lives and might not have the time or inclination to relearn their class.

Healers were already in a pretty good spot, where all six healers could bring unique benefits to a party in any kind of content in the game from duos to warbands. I don't think a complete overhaul was really necessary, when due to the busy lives and parttime nature of the developers it is likely to:
1) Be buggy, with many of those bugs persisting for months.
2) Cause unexpected imbalances among the healers which could potentially lead to...
3) Players needing to reroll and restart the grind in order to play classes which are optimal/desired in groups.

And again, there were no significant imbalances among the healers that really needed to be addressed. This is an unnecessary rebalance which has the potential for huge downside with no clear upside.

[Keula]

Ok 1st things 1st, the best thing: "Using the Kforce of Khaine" Pls never fix that typo and put in all dok abilities.
Kforce forever!!!
Secondly - Sacrificial Renewal - WP already has a 20% outgoing buff, pls tell me that doesn't stack... E2: yea it does seem to stack: https://imgur.com/a/LYxeuAc
205.2 DB sigmars will with grace of sigmar so 1095 without either proc, 1350 with both and 1241 with just exalted defences, math checks out, didn't have prayer on. Also did it with divine mend just to be sure

So quick initial thoughts from reading dok/wp stuff, so no divine fury/murderous intent with shields and healdebuff affecting halfish of teh heal. So less dmg aka less healing from channel(though is the 30% tactic increase to 380% or 455%) and since the prime heal target will always be healdebuffed meaning less st heal from other stuff now and that, well... seem to kinda defeat the point of the shield specs. Basically the whole point of the shield spec is that chalice/book is abysmal ST healing in 6v6(and 12v12, kinda depends) compared to other healers hence ppl were playing shield, extra damage being a nice bonus and nerfing the dmg part i can see, but you're not gonna play shield in warband no matter what, soo... i really don't get the change at all. Even managed to nerf PVE trash clear/solo farm shield healing as no more triple hit consume essence.

That 13 point shield tree ability is a real puzzler as well, same values as transfer essence for dmg/heal but only heals 1 target... Wait no, it's even worse heal as it doesn't lifesteal and build less resources. Why would you ever use that and why is that 13 points one? 35% More on next casted heal don't do much when you have no additional healing stats. I really don't get the idea here at all unless the value was supposed to be way higher and/or at the same time give you next casted heal dmg bonus as well. Even if it said all casted healing abiliteS for 15s, it would still be not great, well for shield, i think chalice might unironically take it at that point.

At least chalice/book is buffed i guess, but that absorb prayer for wp seems insane no? Like it's almost the same values as the chaos/empire tactic for 1 person, but it's whole group aura and doesn't require any tactic at all... meanwhile dok gets some random hot thing... still better than the armour one sure, but like eeh.

Also the entire rework doesn't fix the 1 weird part about chalice dok, what to do with the rest of the career points, WP has the wounds buff to dump 10 points to at least, but dok just has either more celery dmg, which with the new tactics idk if sacrificing 2 slots to go from 20% 120 to 35% 240 for some minor group dmg covenant dmg buff will be worth it, especially with new tactics, or pillage essence which i guess is an interrupt now for more utility, but it isn't on demand 95 SE anymore.

Dps stuff, idk, don't play, i guess you can now go brainlesss zerg surfing with 0s aoe cd, but why does a single target hd for dok still need a tactic and wp don't?

Ok i'm complaining that wp is more powerful than dok too much, gotta do something other way so my bias isn't showing, uhhh, well snare covenant survived still good so maybe that's why the absorb stuff isn't as op as i think it is, interrupt PE is interesting for sure though on demand 95 SE loss makes not a direct buff i guess, but interrupting is always very powerful especially if it's 6v6 wp can't interrupt you but you can their channel heal. Devour essence maybe better also now? idk what the old dmg formula is so no idea if it's lowered or by how much, though wtf does "Reworked to: Curse." even mean? I assume it's a typo so that you don't cast it and your shaman/zealot instantly cleanses it cause they see curse in their hud... E: ok so it's just 5s curse dot on 4 enemies i see, but it no longer pulses at all and the dmg is nerfed quite a bit and doesn't scale bascially at all, does heal more though.

E2: Exalted defences works on the shield heals huh, is that intended? it says casted heals, the 13pt abilitys 35% also says casted heals but that doesn't increase shield heals(it probably should since it's useless or give DB to "normal" heals i naddition) the new 15% tactic does also works but it has different wording and big downside so that i was expecting to work. Interestingly charged fury did not scale with anything.

I do like that heals actually scale with stats more, would go even higher than that even imo, though don't get why the ap st heal scaling was made worse at the same time..

E3: i guess some shield thoughts now after i did some testing, maybe not as bad as i dreaded, but still eeh. The group heal is biiig if it crits for sure, does cost 80 so definitely priced correctly, 13pt ability is as useless as i though it would be and consume essence is just weird being st only dmg and heal wise and not even that high of a heal considering it can be healdebuffed. Also can gift of khaine crit and what crit does it use?

[Endari]

Dps stuff, idk, don't play, i guess you can now go brainlesss zerg surfing with 0s aoe cd, but why does a single target hd for dok still need a tactic and wp don't?

Ok i'm complaining that wp is more powerful than dok too much, gotta do something other way so my bias isn't showing, uhhh, well snare covenant survived still good so maybe that's why the absorb stuff isn't as op as i think it is, interrupt PE is interesting for sure though on demand 95 SE loss makes not a direct buff i guess, but interrupting is always very powerful especially if it's 6v6 wp can't interrupt you but you can their channel heal. Devour essence maybe better also now? idk what the old dmg formula is so no idea if it's lowered or by how much, though wtf does "Reworked to: Curse." even mean? I assume it's a typo so that you don't cast it and your shaman/zealot instantly cleanses it cause they see curse in their hud...

For the entire time of this game from live to RoR the DoK was better at DPS, it had more DPS abilities, snare covenant and PE was just a fantastic tool for SE regen and now on test the WP is a better DPS. Both really fall flat on sustain and the DW DoK is a clunky feels bad mess. I tried a DPS AM on test and that is so much smoother with much less fiddling needed than DPS WP/DoK.

[Reivren27]

I don't like the wp/dok DPS changes, it takes too much for potentially little payoff, it's still raw and... where is there any rdps catching tool for wp? Understand that not everyone plays wb. In general, we need to test it, but so far I’m not happy.

[Marsares]

So much to absorb but at face value I like the changes for the AM.

The mechanic had some functions if you were a DPS AM, but other than for EoV, it was pretty much useless as Heal AM.

Using direct/over-time as balancing mechanic is smart. DPS/Heal wouldn’t have worked well for Heal AM as our damage output is so pitiful, but direct/over-time works for both DPS and Heal.

We always lacked a group HoT. Some interesting changes in tactics, and combo of Magical Infuskon and Funnel Essence seems really good for an “oh ****!” Moment.

Gonna have to try it out on PTS, but on paper it makes the mechanic useful, opens up new specs, and gives us a group HoT. More versatility.

[Loans]

Divine Aid - Now castable on the move
Judgement - Now Core ability in Path of Wrath. No longer requires Righteous Fury. Now costs 20 AP and builds 15 Righteous Fury.

Thanks, finally.

[Farrul]

Some good things, some bad things.

But one important thing ( Regarding DPS WP). It has no gap- closer, an no longer a ranged detaunt.

You removed the 100 ft range detaunt leaving the WP completely vulnerable to ranged kiters, previously it could detaunt a shaman/ranged dps. Now it is a sitting duck.

One interesting thing:

You added Judgement to dps tree but without the snare.

This also applies to Dok DPS but at least they can use Covenant of celerity with the Judgement equivalent and tro to snare from range( with tactic 35% proc). WP 2H is a sitting duck.

P.S. The new detaunt ability is really bad for dps WP, 15 sec cd / 5 sec duration, at least make that equivalent to mdps, 10 sec cd/ 5 duration.

[bw10]

dps wp/dok got cooked of course

[Reivren27]

Some good things, some bad things.

But one important thing ( Regarding DPS WP). It has no gap- closer, an no longer a ranged detaunt.

You removed the 100 ft range detaunt leaving the WP completely vulnerable to ranged kiters, previously it could detaunt a shaman/ranged dps. Now it is a sitting duck.

One interesting thing:

You added Judgement to dps tree but without the snare.

This also applies to Dok DPS but at least they can use Covenant of celerity with the Judgement equivalent and tro to snare from range( with tactic 35% proc). WP 2H is a sitting duck.

P.S. The new detaunt ability is really bad for dps WP, 15 sec cd / 5 sec duration, at least make that equivalent to mdps, 10 sec cd/ 5 duration.

Absolutely correct remark. I'm afraid that if the developers do not reconsider some aspects before introducing the patch, then dps wp/dok will only be playable in wb as aoe spam

[Bergbart]

Lol you dudes become 1600 Armordebuff, stackable critdot and spammable hard hitting nuke, 15 % armopenetration Tactic and other stuff you wanna dps so life as one