World of Warcraft: Current Year

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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11,658
I caught some of the deep dive as Im working. Some of it was interesting, actually. Nothing impressive, really. But I'll probably catch launch on this and stay for 3-4 weeks, as usual.

Q&A
 
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Animosity

Silver Baronet of the Realm
7,760
6,651
Sounds pretty interesting compared to the last few expansions. I might actually buy this one for something to do come January.
 
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bolok

Trakanon Raider
1,251
692
At least Unholy DK won't be popping zits as their primary mechanic anymore
Turning the them into mono colored rune spammers was such a bummer at the time. Might have see what changed for them. Going back to wow is basically a no chance situation. But I’m curious. Wowhead has summaries I imagine.
 
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Lunis

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,343
1,613
Have they cut back on the ability bloat/spam yet? Trying to play an outlaw rogue was like trying to learn how to play the piano.
 
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bolok

Trakanon Raider
1,251
692
Skimmed through the massive blue post for classes/specs that i give a shit about. Seems like they've done a ton of pruning overall. RTB for outlaw got redesigned which should help a bit, but it still seems a bit wacky with stacking between the eyes buffs and cooldown resets.
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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In regards to rotations - two "possible" good things are coming:

They have a one button rotation for ultra casuals. Continues your rotation for you when you get distracted, basically, at a minor DPS loss. Everyone thought it would be terrible, but by all reports that Ive read on it have basically said that its been an overall improvement on the lower end for people. For example, I never could quite figure out the rotation for my Warlock and would constantly be a good 200-300k behind another Warlock with worse gear at the beginning of War Within. Supposedly, even if he has his rotation perfect - Ill only be behind him by 100-200k instead (if it was available in that situation).

If you watch the Q&A, they blocked off a lot of strings in the UI that deadly boss mods, Big wigs, etc. were using to trivialize content. I imagine that if raids and Mythic+ are designed with that in mind, that'll also bring up a lot of the people on the lower end, too.
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I'd like to think that a lot of the bullshit that raid and dungeon bosses do will be culled back to be more understandable at first glance, like FFXIV type shit. But every time Ion has mentioned cutting off Combat Addons at the knee's - he's quickly followed up with "Our own UI will now incorporate timers, bars, etc." ... Which, Im more accustomed to think the worst first, and that we'll just end up with a shitty version of DBM and wish we had our own player made shit back.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
 

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
15,567
15,580
Anyone know if Arcane Mage AOE was brought up to middle pack at least for this expansion? It was still not viable in Season 2 but I haven't been following it.

They said at the time it would be a full expansion cycle to address the way it was nerfed at the time. Just wondering if that happened or it's still C tier in M+
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
10,894
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Anyone know if Arcane Mage AOE was brought up to middle pack at least for this expansion? It was still not viable in Season 2 but I haven't been following it.

They said at the time it would be a full expansion cycle to address the way it was nerfed at the time. Just wondering if that happened or it's still C tier in M+
You know as well as I do how its going to work. I'd be surprised if much of anything stayed the same but we wont know the answers that things are even being worked on until the Alpha (beta?) drops. Even then, War Within still had class changes going in a week before launch. I'm "HOPING" that I can continue to play my Tankadin, but Im sure that all the other classes will get buffs and make him C tier or something.
 

jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
15,567
15,580
You know as well as I do how its going to work. I'd be surprised if much of anything stayed the same but we wont know the answers that things are even being worked on until the Alpha (beta?) drops. Even then, War Within still had class changes going in a week before launch. I'm "HOPING" that I can continue to play my Tankadin, but Im sure that all the other classes will get buffs and make him C tier or something.

It's come rushing back now. Major overhauls to class gameplay that were left until Pre-patch, the week before launch. One thing Nu Blizz can be counted on for is wild sweeping changes. Hunter's heads are still spinning from those reworks I'd reckon.
 
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Jox

Molten Core Raider
762
594
Anyone know if Arcane Mage AOE was brought up to middle pack at least for this expansion? It was still not viable in Season 2 but I haven't been following it.

They said at the time it would be a full expansion cycle to address the way it was nerfed at the time. Just wondering if that happened or it's still C tier in M+
Looks to be an arcane mage in almost every group on front page of raider io.
 

Foggy

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
6,435
5,079
Anyone know if Arcane Mage AOE was brought up to middle pack at least for this expansion? It was still not viable in Season 2 but I haven't been following it.

They said at the time it would be a full expansion cycle to address the way it was nerfed at the time. Just wondering if that happened or it's still C tier in M+
The fuck am I reading? Mage has been meta in M+ for over 4 years running.

Arcane Mage is absurdly good. It’s not an AoE pad spec, so it doesn’t top meters compared to Frost DK or BM hunter, but it’s the best funnel in the game with 6 defensives, 2 stops, interrupt, spell steal, decurse, lust, and raid buff.

It is being redesigned in Midnight so who knows what its damage profile will be.
 
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jayrebb

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
15,567
15,580
Arcane was taken out of meta in .5 by mid season. Completely gutted Sunfury which is where most of the M+ aoe horsepower was.

Spellslinger was an ok pivot-- but nowhere near meta. You could still get 8 keys in for vault. But by the end of season 1 even keystone heros were generally unwanted as the community caught up with the amount of nerfs. A 10% flat base damage reduction went in on top of the Sunfury specific nerfs plus some rotation changes that snuffed aoe burst.

A handful of weeks S tier launch is all you got.

Go back in the thread to War Within launch if you need a refresher. All changes and patch notes are posted here for Arcane as they came out, mainly due to the controversy of gutting it almost before .5 tuning came out. They stayed A tier in single-target raiding but never recovered from bottom of the aoe pile after the Sunfury and flat % damage reduction to base kit. You could get your keys in, but nobody was pushing with Arcane at the end of season 1.
 

Foggy

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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5,079
It ended last season as spellslinger in the meta and is currently meta as sunfury this season.
 

Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
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Completely gutted Sunfury which is where most of the M+ aoe horsepower was.
High end M+ meta has moved on from sucking damage meter dick and is now either one high priority or high hp target + funnel into it. If you only play keystones 12 and below: you can time these with basically any combo.

 
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