Big 12.1 Buffs for Everyone!

[00:04] Death Knight tier set has been changed and holy holy paladin actually has patch notes. This week of 12.1 developer notes are things people have been asking for for ever. Let's check out all the buffs and nerfs

[00:19] Let's check out all the buffs and nerfs and what you can expect for next season. its tier set bonus to what looks like an actual upgrade and decently interesting

[00:32] actual upgrade and decently interesting bonus. The two set will make your death strikes give you a stack of a buff called blood debt. This one increases your strength by 0.5% for a total of 5% at 10 stacks. Once you get those 10

[00:45] stacks, using Marrowrend will consume the buff to give you 10% strength for 10 seconds. The four set bonus buffs you after you consume the blood debt buff, making your next Marrowrend grant extra three bone shield charges and deal

[01:00] shadow damage to your main target and surrounding enemies as well. Since this is not yet on the PTR to be able to test, we don't know if this means that two Marrowrends will be empowered now. One that consumes the blood death and

[01:12] the one that actually gets you the extra shadow damage and bone shield stacks, since that's how the wording of this tier set bonus sounds like. On paper, this tier set sounds really nice, but it can be a trap if played incorrectly. It

[01:26] is very easy to approach this with a DPS brain and think that you want to spam death strikes to get the up time on this buff as high as possible. However, when it comes to blood, that would be the wrong way to play. Normally, your death

[01:40] strikes need to be calculated. They are precious because they keep you alive and wasting your runic power for a strength buff only to be left without resources once dangerous damage comes is a quick way to die. There could be a fine line

[01:54] to walk between you not wasting death strikes for the sake of a strength buff, but also making sure you get as much up time on the 10% strength as possible. time on the 10% strength as possible. That might be the skill expression.

[02:10] >> Druid got a wide assortment of buffs, mainly. The baseline shred and cat form swipe have had their damage increased by 10% seemingly for all specs. Balance has a niche update where you cannot cancel the aura of orbit breaker anymore.

[02:26] People were doing this so they can time when the moon crashes for it to be inside of a DPS cool down. The devs do not like this style of gameplay. Another thing the devs do not like is for wrath to be better than Starfire while using a

[02:40] loon's chosen as a hero talent. As such, lunar calling is once again back to buffing Starfire to deal 120% of its damage to the main target. Not only that, but star cascade will no longer trigger from wrath, but rather just from

[02:54] Starfire. Likely to compensate for these changes, bask in moonlight will only increase the damage of star surge by 5% instead of the previous 10%. Feral had merciless claws and rampant ferocity swap positions in the talent tree,

[03:08] likely to create better pathing for some builds. Merciless claws was also buffed to increase shred and swipe damage by 25% instead of the previous 20. Blood splatter increases ferocious bite damage by 8% up from the previous two, but it

[03:23] will also cap at six maximum stacks rather than the previous 10. This means the new blood splatter will gain max value on six enemies for 48% more bite damage from the previous 20% on 10 targets. This is a weirdly large buff, a

[03:38] welcome one, but unusual one. Feral has been struggling with single target for quite a while now and all of the buffs we have seen have been very lackluster up until now. I'm curious if we can get a feral that will end up having a decent

[03:51] amount of priority damage in season two, or at least funnel in this case. Taste for blood will also increase ferocious bite damage by 16% up from the previous 12%, but only by another 8% during tiger's fury, down from the previous 12.

[04:05] The overall is the same, but the damage was shifted from more damage during tiger's fury to more damage outside of it, in tune with their announced philosophy on lowering burst damage for classes and increasing consistent DPS

[04:18] across the board. Lastly, all damage has been increased by 3%. explosive shot damage output. The devs mentioned they want to move power from

[04:34] the tier set bonus into the baseline strength of the spell. As such, explosive shot deals 15% more damage, but the two set bonus will now increase explosive shot damage by 5% instead of the previous 20.

[04:47] Normally, it's great when power lies more in the class rather than the tier set. In the past, classes have been very dependent on tier sets, making them almost unplayable without that particular season's borrowed power. So,

[05:01] on paper, this is a good change, so long as the tier set is not absolute garbage and gets ignored for item level. So far, marksmanship has gotten one of the more pretty much all of the specs in the game, so the changes to explosive shot

[05:15] will not really matter too much in the grand scheme of things as far as grand scheme of things as far as gameplay is concerned. [music]

[05:28] improvements in mage's defensives, let's see what the devs think about all of this. We are continuing to iterate on mage's defensive capabilities based on PTR play testing and feedback. We are unifying the functionality of improved

[05:42] barrier to give all specs an additional charge of their barrier spell plus one rider effect that is spec specific. Additionally, arcane mages have a new unique defensive talent in their specialization tree called refractive

[05:56] images. So, the new mage barrier gets an additional charge for each spec. Additionally, prismatic barrier gets only 5% extra magic damage reduction, blazing barrier instead heals you for 15% of the damage it absorbed, and ice

[06:11] barrier gives you 10% physical damage reduction. Additionally, for arcane, you gain a new talent that you cannot skip anymore called refractive images. The 10% of the damage that you take will now instead be transferred into an 8-second

[06:25] damage over time effect. However, when mirror images are cast, you increase the damage percentage to 30% for 15 seconds, meaning you are a mini little brewmaster monk. This smooths out the damage that

[06:37] you take, giving your healers time to keep you up, but also giving you time to respond with another barrier or health potion if needed. On top of it, orb mastery has been redesigned where now whenever you cast an orb, you fire two

[06:51] additional ones at 50% effectiveness. Clear casting does not synergize with this talent anymore. Expanded mind was also nerfed to make orbs grant only one stack of salvo instead of two. Some talents have been

[07:04] moved around to accommodate all of this also. Spell slinger was also addressed with a nerf to polished focus where casting barrage at 20 stacks of salvo or more will refund three stacks instead of five. Now, all of these changes are hard

[07:19] to pinpoint since with the change to orb mastery, you might not have the same rules on using arcane orb, seemingly letting you cast freely or at least more of them overall. Not convinced this compensates the nerfs to the salvo

[07:32] economy or if this is exactly how arcane will be played, so we need to keep our will be played, so we need to keep our eyes open. around. Eternal Flame and Word of Glory get 15% extra healing to start with. The

[07:47] devs want to bridge the gap between the strength of the single target spenders and Light of Dawn. But, it doesn't stop there. Since Holy also gets pretty hefty DPS buffs, all of your damage will be increased by 20%

[08:00] across the board together with Judgment and Hammer of Wrath being buffed by 25%. Avenging Crusader will now transfer 55% of the damage done into healing, down from the previous 80%, likely to adjust to the increase in damage gains. Pillar

[08:15] of Light's buff to Beacon of Virtue was massively increased by 50% to be exact to incentivize people to play more Virtue in dungeons. The Unworthy debuff will now also last for 18 seconds instead of 15. This should be the

[08:28] Greater Judgment debuff that you put on enemies when, you know, you're casting your Judgments. Prot Paladin also got some juice. Same buff to Unworthy debuff, but hey, your talent tree is absolute [ __ ] now. Oh, you haven't

[08:41] heard? A bunch of talent nodes have been swapped around making you have to take incredibly ass talent nodes to get the same type of bonuses. Why has this happened? We don't know. Was it explained? Nope.

[08:56] Was it feedbacked by players? Nope. Does it make sense? Nope. The whole talent tree rework on Prot Paladin seems so random. Like someone just came into the coffee machine, and put it in the bathroom, replaced the sugar cabinet

[09:12] with pencil cases, and 10 other really random things seemingly just to [ __ ] with people. I honestly don't know. I checked the Paladin community for more enlightened minds to share their opinions, and it seems like

[09:26] the feelings are more or less mutual at the moment. Conclusion, play Ret Paladin. Speaking of, Ret also gets the Greater Judgment debuff extended to 18 seconds. And also, yet another change to the

[09:38] four-set bonus. We covered this in our red video, by the way. The current version of it says that when you consume divine purpose with divine storm, you buff your next two Templar verdicts to unleash divine arbiter at the enemy,

[09:52] dealing holy damage to it and nearby targets, if it is not already empowered. This last bit seems to have been put in, which leads me to believe they want to avoid any conflicting buffs and procs that can affect Templar's verdict all at

[10:06] once, since you can actually have about two buffs at one time, one being the tier set, one being something like Imperian Legacy. This seems to be a lot of heavy lifting just to keep this bonus in, which I respect, because it is one

[10:20] of the very few good tier set bonuses in season two. Additionally, divine arbiter will now benefit from divine purpose and greater benefit from divine purpose and greater judgment.

[10:35] for holy priest, where now each target affected by your renewal will increase your crit chance by 2% up to 6% instead of haste being the stat that's increased. The devs addressed this. After reading through feedback, we're

[10:49] updating this tier set bonus to increase critical strike chance instead of haste, since it's a more desirable stat for holy. The original intent behind increasing haste was to tie into the periodic nature of renew, but we

[11:01] understand the desire for a stat that is beneficial rotationally wise. Great feedback. Wish we could get this for prop paladin, also. for prop paladin, also. >> [music]

[11:16] buffs to the ambush playstyle. Hidden Opportunities chance for ambush to grant Opportunity Strike now is a 100% of the chance that it's a strike has, up from the previous 80%. Ambush will also cost five less energy to the

[11:30] five less energy to the Audacity will now also give Ambush a 60% damage boost. Killing Spree will also have a higher chance to target your selected target if possible. I actually did not know this wasn't a

[11:43] thing. Wild, the thing that you could fire Killing Spree and not even hit your main target. The four set was also changed slightly. The chance to trigger a free dispatch was raised to 20% from 12, but the additional hits Sinister

[11:57] Strike would proc will no longer also have their own chance to give you a free dispatch, making the proc chance between Ambush and Sinister Strike equal and not favor one over the other. More Ambush buffs? Yes, please.

[12:13] Sub is finally getting Goremaw's Bite reworked. Now, when you use it, you will additional targets, dealing shadow damage and putting a 14-second bleed on them. During this time, 10% of all of the finisher damage is repeated as

[12:27] shadow damage on the affected enemies. However, it is no longer a combo point generator. Actually, this last part might not be that bad considering that the combo point economy has been improved to the point where we might

[12:41] actually cap them even more next season, leading to maybe not as big of an issue altogether. The First Dance will now increase Shadow Dance duration by 4 seconds up from the previous three. Shadow Techniques frequency has been

[12:55] Shadow Techniques frequency has been increased by 40%. Wait, there is more. The energy gain is also increased to five from 4%. Shadow Craft now will be causing Shadow Techniques during Shadow Dance to trigger 25% more often while

[13:08] generating an additional combo point. Overall, the rogue theory crafters are estimating that we will get even more resources in 12.1.

[13:23] improved to account for low target scenarios. And now, when you press Volcanic Blaze on your main target, that target explodes in a fire nova every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, and the main target of your Volcanic Blaze takes 200%

[13:36] more damage from the fire nova. Restoration has also received a buff to its four-set bonus. To explain it, first the two-set makes your Healing Wave and Chain Heal have a chance to spawn a healing rain under the target for 10

[13:49] seconds. The four-set gives an absorb shield to a target in that healing rain every second. The absorb has now been buffed by 300%. This is a case of a tier set effect being underwhelming by a large margin

[14:02] and being addressed, which sometimes it isn't. So, it's great to sometimes it isn't. So, it's great to see when it is.

[14:15] the war within expansion. It finally got some juicy buffs this PTR cycle. Black and Soul damage was increased by 45% and Wither damage increased by 25%.

[14:27] These are pretty significant buffs, yet Hellcaller was behind its counterparts for almost two seasons now. Affliction gets a redesign on its two-set bonus. Previously, it gave you a chance to generate a soul shard after consuming a

[14:39] soul shard. And soul shard economy for Affliction in AoE at the very least was the least of your problems. If anything, this effect would be turbo annoying since you would be overflowing shards otherwise.

[14:53] increase Agony damage by 15% and Corruption damage by 25% with no Corruption damage by 25% with no relation to shard generation at all.

[15:07] Tactical Edge will now make Colossus Smash give you one stack of Sudden Death instead of more tactician procs. One issue I personally had with Arms is the overemphasis on overpower casts and large amounts of resets. Actually, the

[15:21] devs' philosophy to tactician is something I agree with. And I quote, "We feel like the original design's effect was difficult to feel and eroded the uniqueness of tactician. We think this design will be much more rotationally

[15:35] impactful and provide some additional interactions for slayer and execute focused builds." Which honestly, it's just slayer. Additionally, ravager will deal its damage, but now also make enemies take

[15:48] 50% more damage from your bleeds from the previous 25%. This same change was applied to protection warrior, as well as a change to revenge getting an extra proc condition from auto attacks. This is the

[16:01] end of an era and a sure-fire way to make haste even stronger for protection warrior. Having revenge proc from auto attacks is, on paper, pretty big and will give you more revenge casts. Maybe this can translate into a different

[16:15] but I doubt it, considering how much focus there is around thunder blast for Thain and how much ignore pain you might have to cast for colossus. Great to have the option though. This week has been a weird one for class changes with some

[16:30] surprising winners and massive losers. Looking at you, prot paladins. And we are only in the second week of the PTR cycle. Until more stuff make sure you are subbed to the channel and leave a like if you enjoyed the

[16:43] video and check out the red video that we talked about here going over the new red gameplay that's waiting for you in 12.1.