[00:04] The PTR for 12.1 is coming swiftly to a close with the announced changes that we close with the announced changes that we have this week with a lot of finishing touches on all of the classes. There are so many bug fixes and spell
[00:17] surprised they are aware there are so many bugs. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. We all meme on the bugs that we have nowadays with the patches. However, there are a surprisingly high amount of fixes and we won't go into those
[00:30] specifically today, but we will talk about the tuning, what happens with the overpowered prop balance, underpowered rogues, and survival is getting reworked again. >> [music]
[00:49] of events this week, we have developer notes surrounding Outlaw, probably the because I've played it and I was doing tank level damage. I was abs- I was not upset. I was actually sad, however, but I swiftly got over it because Outlaw is
[01:05] still so fun. But what is going on with Outlaw at least in this week of the PTR Well, first of all, let's see what the devs have to say about this cuz it's their philosophy is and where they want to take this SPEC BECAUSE I PROBABLY
[01:19] WANT TO MAIN IT, DUDE. Much of Killing Spree's value is the combo points it more combo points on Killing Spree than their maximum, such as through Supercharge, the value of those extra points is diminished. Killing Spree's
[01:33] duration now maxes out at the time required to generate maximum combo points and any extra combo points spent increases the damage of the ability by a proportional amount. What does that mean in actual practice and in the changes
[01:46] that happened? Well, Killing Spree has been updated. The duration no longer increases from spending combo points beyond your maximum. That actually is great and and tell you why. Each combo point spent beyond your maximum
[01:58] increases damage by 15%. Killing Spree has been kind of like a weird ability for, at least so far since it's been reworked, to the point where it was very close to being a DPS loss to actually cast it. I have seen and heard good
[02:12] probably not even cast it during Adrenaline Rush period, although that's still probably up for debate. For an ability that's so visually impactful and has such a actually a pretty good feeling when you actually cast it
[02:25] actually pretty big. You would hope that this would do a little bit more. Now, rubbing some people the wrong way and that's perfectly fine. I don't because Blade Storm is one of the best things created since sliced bread in
[02:40] Goldshire. The Killing Spree has a couple of issues because it lasts too long. So, lasting even longer is a problem, so I'm glad personally would like to do because I want to feel like Killing Spree is a big
[02:53] Obviously, it also generates combo points. So, it's never going to be like the biggest hitter ever in the whole wide world considering that it has so much other value packed into it. Additionally, Adrenaline Rush now speeds
[03:06] up the execution of Killing Spree by 20%, the same rate it increases the speed of your other attacks. This is exactly what I told you 30 This is exactly what I told you 30 seconds ago and this is really good once
[03:18] have to use Killing Spree before Adrenaline Rush. Although, having a your damage is something that I personally like to have in classes and whenever it is active. You just press it, right? I don't want to have to press
[03:33] they're available and they're shiny. I want there to be a little bit of and a little bit of synergy there. We'll see how this plays in practice. In theory, what they're saying is that you should be able to cast Killing Spree
[03:47] should be able to cast Killing Spree during Adrenaline Rush. playing the new specs. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen anything for
[03:59] Vengeance. However, for Devour, cuz a lot of people have their eyes on the new Devour playstyle, Hungering Slash now properly gives a temporary charge of Vengeful Retreat rather than giving a free cast and also resetting its cool
[04:11] down. This is also good whenever they're adding this type of change because this in terms of your gameplay. Whenever an ability is resetting your cool down for another ability, if you don't use that other ability right away, you
[04:25] essentially lose value on the cool down reset because if you wait with it being essentially be wasting the cool down reduction that would have happened otherwise if the ability would have been recharging in the background, which is
[04:37] what's going to happen when you have charges of abilities instead of just the have your general Vengeful Retreat that's essentially on cool down, you then use Hungering Slash that would normally reset the cool down remaining
[04:51] questionable value. And then if you don't use it right away, then you might Retreat because by the time you end up using it, it might have just came off cool down naturally. But getting an extra charge, the original charge that
[05:04] was on cool down that you used is still recharging giving you value for time, and you still have the new charge of Vengeful Retreat to use, essentially Vengeful Retreat. Now, I don't know if you need that, but having the option to
[05:19] dodge a lot of mechanics, especially as a caster, is very valuable. Not that it. We have momentum changes for Havoc, but don't get your hopes up or down too much because I know the majority of the loud
[05:32] Havoc community do not like momentum, although I'm a big fan of it. The talent has been renamed and broken apart into two different talents, one that's being addressed this week with its effect now increases damage by
[05:46] with its effect now increases damage by 12% for 6 seconds instead of 18% for 5 seconds. What essentially this does is makes it a little bit less punishing to use. Widening the window of the DPS to 6 seconds instead of 5 gives it more
[05:59] freedom and more access for you to fit in different types of buffers with essence break, with double blade dance, with an eye beam and so on squeeze that in into 5 seconds. It might not seem like much 6 seconds so as a
[06:13] part from 5 seconds, but you can think of it as a duration increase of 20%. instead of 18, that feels like a little bit of a nerf overall, which sucks for inertia itself, but also means once again that people will not be
[06:29] punished as hard for not being able to play the movement build. restoration tier set that was giving you the genesis effect. Now, what the
[06:45] four-set bonus will do is nature's swiftness, tranquility, and incarnation tree of life or convoke the spirits have a 100% chance to grant genesis and its duration is increased by 4 seconds. We've reported about this I think 2
[06:58] weeks ago with the tier set being reworked then to include iron bark to bark has been taken away and instead replaced with incarnation or convoke. This probably means that the devs wanted restoration druid to actually talent and
[07:12] path into incarnation or convoke as opposed to ignoring them if that was actually the case and they ended up being ignored. Now, we're no strangers talents. I think that's actually pretty good, especially since it's a seasonal
[07:26] you're not going to be stuck with a specific play style for too long, and this is a good opportunity for them to test and you know, experiment with new talent builds, although we can hardly call incarnation and convoke for
[07:39] restoration druid new at any point in time, but at least it does offer restoration power in its cooldowns. And honestly, I'm not saying it's a bad some dungeons right now, and I can say that I would have preferred to be healed
[07:52] druid. Now, probably the good restoration druids are doing 18s and they're smashing, but from the general plus 10 plus 12 perspective, I'm glad resto druid is being buffed as a person that's going to be healed by them in
[08:05] that's going to be healed by them in season 2. The major changes happens to survival and marksmanship. First with
[08:17] marksmanship, explosive shot damage has been increased by 100%, but now only explodes for 50% of damage done to other nearby enemies. Mathematically, if my napkin math is correct, that means it's AoE value is
[08:31] actually the same, but it now has more single target power, and that's actually be surprised to hear that I personally am a fan of funnel damage, priority target damage. And I think this is a
[08:44] good way to push specs into the meta and into mythic plus, for instance, and into the best at doing the most amount of damage possible, but they have efficient use this example because it's a very good example. Back in the world within
[09:01] with arcane mage being the best funnel damage or priority damage or both DPS in the game was the best at killing one target in particular. And what that it didn't have the most amount of damage out of the group, but you still wanted
[09:16] arcane mage, and this is a situation where you don't just want biggest dicks biggest DPS out in the world, and it can open up the door for more DPS to be out there that are not just giga giga damage dealers.
[09:29] And now to the actual survival changes. Quite big, surprisingly big for this believe that they're probably putting the final touches to a lot of the notes, because once again, this is important to understand where they're
[09:45] coming from and where they are going with survival four survival aficionados We're removing Flamefang Pitch in this week's PTR, as it has not been a popular of the mechanics of the survival hunter spec. We had to adjust a few talents
[10:01] with the removal of Flamefang Pitch, but kept them focused on wildfire bombs and fiery themes. There has been some feedback about usability problems with the Pack Leader hero talents, specifically Hogstrider,
[10:14] with the timing of Boomstick. So, we're making the Hogstrider buff last significantly longer. We're also adjusting your tier set bonus to introduce more gameplay with Boomstick and Mongoose Fury. This is great.
[10:27] with Flamefang Pitch and reducing the cooldown of wildfire bombs, because it felt like it had a nice cadence into button to press. But, uh this being taken away kind of goes into the fact
[10:40] taken away kind of goes into the fact that ever since beta or pre-patch uh for Pitch once and that was like, what, 6 months ago. new talent, bombardier, which I think we've had before, but this is probably a
[10:54] new version of it. Wildfire bomb damage, critical strike chance, and critical damage dealt increased by 15%. This is the most wildfire bomb damage just cranks type talent that I've ever seen. Wildfire imbument has been redesigned.
[11:08] Throwing a wildfire bomb has a chance to imbue your weapon with flames, causing additional fire damage for 10 seconds. I believe this was an actual effect of Flamefang Pitch, probably renamed differently. It doesn't really matter,
[11:21] but essentially, when you threw your pitch before, your attacks would do fire damage. Now, you just get that from bombs. Grenade Juggler has been redesigned. Throwing a wildfire bomb has a chance to increase the recharge rate
[11:33] of Wildfire Bomb by 75% for 8 seconds. cooldown reduction. I believe Grenade Juggler either reduced the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb before or interacted with the cooldown of Wildfire Bomb somehow. I
[11:46] is. Doesn't really matter. You still get cooldown reduction with it right now, but it recharges faster as opposed to just getting flat charges of bombs. cooldown manager, which is a great thing. Lunch now increases your agility
[11:59] thing. Lunch now increases your agility by 3% up from 2% plus an additional 1% previously was 2% while dual wielding. This is probably to adjust the duality dual wield to actually be a little bit
[12:13] more competitive. I hope in theory and in practice as well that this makes close together because it feels nice to have different options. We'll have to better and better over the years when we look at Windwalker [music] Monk and
[12:27] Frost Death Knight at balancing both weapons as well for whoever wants to play different styles. Wildfire Shells now grants 5 seconds of Previously was 2 seconds, so this is a buff. And the two set bonus has also
[12:41] been updated. Mongoose Fury increases the damage of Wildfire Bomb by 10%. This is pretty much boring, but it is a more interesting version of you do more damage passively. The four set has also been updated. Each blast of Boomstick
[12:56] increases the duration of Mongoose Fury by 1 second. Mongoose Fury effects are increased by 10%. Now increasing the duration of Mongoose Fury means that you also have a more uptime on Wildfire Bomb damage by 10% from the two set. And into
[13:10] the hero talents for survival for Pack Leader as was mentioned before, Hawkstrider now lasts for 1 minute instead of the 20 seconds. And starting a raid encounter or a mythic plus dungeon. Hawkstrider was basically
[13:24] when your boar rams through enemies, it buffs the next cast of your boomstick. That was lasting for 20 seconds. So, if you wouldn't have used boomstick within that 20-second window, you would have lost this buff. So, upping that to 1
[13:37] talking about moving from pack-to-pack in dungeons, or probably waiting for a set of ads spawning on a raid fight, and then don't want to use boomstick right away, but if you waited for 5 or 10 extra seconds, you would have lost the
[13:51] For Sentinel, Moon's Blessing now grants 6 seconds of Wildfire Bomb cooldown reduction when applying Sentinel's Mark. Previously was 4 seconds, and Sentinel's Mark duration increased to 16 seconds from the previous 12 seconds. A longer
[14:06] flexibility in how you consume it, and how you deal your damage, and how you rotate your Tip of the Spear with your Bomb usage. Not to mention that Bombs having a larger cooldown reduction probably also has to do a little bit
[14:18] cooldown reduction for Wildfire Bombs. That, of course, you weren't using cuz but maybe they want to retain the amount of Bombs that you overall use over the course of a fight, and they are squeezing this in in the Hero Talents.
[14:39] the powers that be, Protection Paladin has been nerfed. And thank god, cuz now the DPS meter. Hammer and Anvil damage has been reduced by 20%. This is, for what I understand, a Lightsmyth Talent. Instrument of the Divine now shares a
[14:54] choice node with Solace. Previously was Sanctuary. Bulwark of Righteous Fury increases the damage of your next Shield of the Righteous by 10% per stack, down from 20%. The foresaid bonus now deals 100%
[15:07] additional damage on critical strikes. Previously was 200%. Decent nerfs. I don't think they're too high up there, but we can all agree, especially if you have seen any PTR footage of Prot Paladin, or you have
[15:19] seen our streams, that's twitch.tv/marcelineinflame. Leave a follow. That prot paladin was doing a little bit too much damage. Although I am a fan of tanks doing damage period, it was getting
[15:31] performance in terms of the DPS specs out there. So maybe it was a little bit too much. So I hope that the nerfs bring it down just by a little bit, not by too much, and ideally buff the DPS specs that have to compete with it cuz it's
[15:44] that have to compete with it cuz it's wild out there. cost reduced by 10%. Prayer of healing mana cost reduced by 10%. The apex
[15:59] talent Benediction healing has been increased by 15% and another change to the rank three talent Apotheosis no longer upgrades flash heal to Benediction. Holy Word: Serenity now has a 100% chance to upgrade your next flash
[16:13] heal to Benediction. Long story short from the developer notes, they want the Benediction ability to be a little bit more prominent and not just be tied to Apotheosis. So they're breaking its synergy with Apotheosis and having it
[16:25] proc from Holy Word: Serenity. As a non-holy priest player, I don't have a lot of opinions to say about this, but I'm sure holy priests are happy out mechanic more often or rather not have it tied to a cool down, which is great.
[16:39] and dear to my heart for season two, we have some nerfs unfortunately. Although I don't know if it was necessarily deserved, but I am biased. Idol of Mueh'zala off now generates two insanity from four at 50 stacks and six insanity
[16:54] from 12 at 100 stacks. The insanity generation was a little bit too high for what the devs wanted for shadow priest. Additionally, the four set bonus has been redesigned. The devs have listened to people. Tentacle slam has a 100%
[17:08] chance now to grant you a free use of void volley at 125% effectiveness instead of making your next Vampiric Touch free and spawning shadowy apparitions.
[17:21] synergy of this because it felt like it pushed shadowy apparitions build even more. I'm hoping that still is the case because Shadow Apparition is doing 200% damage in the previous proc was probably a good reason to play Shadow
[17:35] Apparitions. Getting a Void Volley proc on Tentacle Slam is also really fun you get occasionally through your rotation and that's exactly what the matter what happens, you can rest assured that the Shadow game play
[17:48] remains as you pressing Tentacle Slam and a cool spell to press that does cool things afterwards follows through. Another change happened to the Arcan talent focused Albers which now causes Shadow Word: Madness cast during Void
[18:00] Form to unleash a Void Volley at your target at 25% effectiveness down from the previous 100%. This was probably one of the reasons why Arcan was performing so well on the PTR, so they're probably trying to adjust its
[18:12] performance closer to Void Weaver while at the same time having still the damage of Shadow Priest be present there with how Void Volley does its damage normally. Overall, it's very hard to quantify all of these nerfs and
[18:26] seemingly buffs in the tier set. We'll have to see how it ends up playing out. I hope that the hero talents are closer to each other because Shadow Priest is one of the most fun classes to play [music] next season.
[18:42] healer and tank changes. Particularly this time with Restoration Shaman and some developer notes that I will read out to you right now. We are lowering Rain receives from the Totemic hero talents and increase Healing's Rain
[18:55] baseline healing amount. So, essentially Healing Rain healing has been increased by 20% Healing Wave healing has been increased by 10% while Totemic Pulse Capacitor now increases the healing done by Surging Totem by 10% from the
[19:10] And Surging Totem now increases the effectiveness of healing rain by 10% from the previous 20%. So, more power into the baseline kit. That's normally good because it just makes the class itself stronger while hero talents are
[19:24] makes your talents a little bit less impactful. What do you think? Is that want for hero talents? You still want spell skins for your abilities with hero to me. I know that's what you want. People have been calling it since 2024.
[19:47] talk about the bug fixes that we've been seeing over the course of all of these warlock one really quick because it's actually quite impactful and I wasn't player, which is a shame to me. But, there's been an issue with fixing
[20:01] several abilities that would not grant you soul leech and feeling a little bit This makes a lot of sense. So, the you soul leech have been fixed so that they do grant you soul leech right now,
[20:13] making you tankier. That's wither, blackened soul, infernal bolt, soul anathema, wicked reaping, avatar of destruction's chaos bolt, unstable affliction, malefic grasp, vilefiend's headbutt, and bile spit, gloom hound's
[20:28] gloom slash, wild imp, and imp gang bosses fell fire bolt, implord's greater fell bolt, demonic tyrant's demon fire. Just tell me I don't have soul leech at
[20:40] all, bro. Just tell me I'm just going to die more. This is actually incredible. soul leech, warlocks in general should be way tankier in season two. Now, for be way tankier in season two. Now, for probably the sad news. Affliction.
[20:54] thinking that they will be playing it in season two, but they forgot that good spec. I'm kidding. I'm a little bit bitter, but we're going to go into the developer note related to the talent patient zero. Before I go into it,
[21:10] increase the seed of corruption damage that [music] it was doing to its host, essentially the targets that were hit by seed of corruption, giving you more priority and funnel damage. Again, that's something that's good, but the
[21:22] devs don't want affliction to have that. So, what do they have to say? Patient zero warps the damage profile of seed of corruption heavily. The specific use case for seed of corruption as a tool is to supply damage in multi-target
[21:36] increase priority damage dilutes its identity. Although I agree with that, having priority damage is something that's good, and taking it away is a net loss as far as I'm concerned. Hedonic
[21:48] gorging is a new talent that hooks into the common through line of health leech between drain life, siphon life, and dark harvest. The intention for this talent is for most of the throughput to reside in siphon life and dark harvest,
[22:04] while the increased drain life is meant to be smaller and a bit of flavor. So, the new talent is hedonic gorging, which will now increase drain life damage by 10% and siphon life now increase the damage of corruption by an additional
[22:18] damage of corruption by an additional 10%. Dark harvest channels 10% faster 10%. Dark harvest channels 10% faster and deals 15% increased damage. probably seems like it's going to be a slight buff. The 15% extra damage in
[22:31] dark harvest gives you a little bit more burst. Corruption also doing 10% more just going to have flat out more damage instead of just explosive with seed of corruption. Again, as a fan of funnel and priority damage, I'm not excited
[22:45] that affliction might be a little bit more viable, which I doubt, that's great. But, I am on the fan base for affliction, because destruction has been affliction, because destruction has been nerfed by 5% across the board. On top of
[23:00] that, the four set has been changed as well. Target damaged by Echo of Sargeras now take 6% increased damage from your spells and abilities for 6 seconds with a developer note. Due to an oversight, the original bonus functioned
[23:14] incorrectly. The intention behind this set bonus was to increase all damage dealt to the target, not just Echo of Sargeras. And if you have been keeping up with destruction sets, previously Echo of Sargeras would buff the damage
[23:26] of Echo of Sargeras. Now, Echo of Sargeras just buffs your entire damage across the board, which is probably a buff and maybe this is why we're seeing the nerf to all of the damage for destruction. We'll see how this plays
[23:39] out once the meta actually establishes itself. It is clear we are getting closer and closer to the release of season 2 with changes being especially like we're missing quite a bunch of
[23:52] changes and tuning particularly to tanks. We have seen just prot paladin row, which is not that it doesn't deserve it, but I'm curious to see what else happens. In the meantime, you have to watch a list of video right here.
[24:07] Because in this video, I talk about the most fun range DPS in the game and why shadow priest is a particularly interesting one to look out for in will change your main choices, but it definitely changed mine.