Announced 2.7 changes discussion

[MidichIorian]

They had one good change and it turned out to be a lie. They don't even have the decency to elaborate on the 3 to 4 stack change. Surely they must be aware of it atleast.

 

So thanks for nothing.

[oldspiceswog]

healers didnt get what they needed

madness didnt get the force management mechanic they needed

 

not impressed in the slightest with the changes. they still dont understand that removing pushback on some stuff isnt going to cut it for healers, and refuse to admit the issue behind madness force regen

[Chrisweaver]

Yeehaw!

 

Ok, after much discussion internally based on y'alls feedback, here is the version we are loading up right now, which should get to PTS with this week's patch.

 

A) Ignore my previous post, we aren't doing any of that.

B) Wrath will be changed to: When you deal damage with Force Lightning, you get a Wrath proc that makes your next Lightning Strike/Crushing Darkness instant and increases its damage by 35%.

 

Boom. Simple and to the point. We have decided to re-embrace the clip. This should let our Madness guys who want to be mobile full capacity to do that (since Wrath will now usually proc on the first tick of FL damage). If our testing and math is solid, for most people this will mean it is most advantageous (from a pure DPS standpoint), to clip it just after the 3rd tick, basically just like we originally talked about in the first preview notes but with some added movement utility for the PvP crowd who want to be on the run. Conceivably, you can clip after the 2nd tick and then wait a smidge for GCD to get the instant cast off ASAP, but you do end up losing a touch of long term damage simply because you are idle.

 

Discuss

[colemanron]

I think it's kind of an easy, but not necesserily a smart way of handling the situation. Seems like they want us to cast Force Lightning all the way through = use the ability as it was implemented to the game = use it as intended. Instead now even their own maths say it's better to clip it after the 3rd tick. I don't like this idea.

 

Basically Madness DPS will come down to who can find the most efficient way of defeating lag. We have seen that on the Juggernaut dps leaderboards before. Sorry for not remembering names, and being too lazy to look it up, but the one person, who mastered clipping Ravage at the right moment owns the #1 spot for eternity. And for Juggs it's a channel used on a medium length cooldown, not a spammed filler. The dps difference coming from latency will be significant beetween 2 people doing the exact same rotation with 0,1 or even 0,05 second difference on every clip of FL.

 

The most efficient way of defeating lag is macros. There are people out there with extremely precise muscle memory, extremely low latency and extremely reliable connection, who after a lot of practice can pull off clipping channels at the right moment almost every time by heart, but they will be in the minority. I also know macroing is "illegal", but let's not kid ourselves: there are quiete a few people doing it regardless. Fact. And I expect this change will push even more to do it.

 

The good way of fixing it would be some incentive to get off that last tick of FL anyway. Obviously making Wrath require 4 stacks didn't work out the way they wanted, but there are other ways. For example I think splitting the damage among the ticks unevenly could make this work. Obviously the first tick should deal less damage and the last should deal more, while the overall damage of the ability should be unchanged. In my opinion that alone were enough, and while it may hurt mobile dps slightly, I think it were a fair price to pay for breaking the channel early, especially considering how everything else is instant cast in Madness. Of course it would require rebuilding the ability, which may not be something the devs want to do at this point. It is still worth at least mentioning anyway.