WoW Strategy Newsletter 20070717

Incoming Nerfs And Buffs

The next patch (2.2) is out on the test realms and many patch notes are already available over at Worldofwarcraft.com (subject to change, of course). The patch will probably go live 2-3 weeks from now.

Here are some of the most noteworthy changes:

• The DoT nerf. Resilience will now affect damage over time spells, like Shadow Word: Pain, Curse of Agony and Corruption, reducing their damage by an amount equal to the critical strike chance reduction against other attacks. Since 1% critical strike reduction at level 70 requires roughly 40 resilience, a resilience rating of 400 will reduce damage taken by DoTs by 10%.

• The crowd control nerf. Many CC (crowd control) spells and abilities are getting their PvP duration reduced from 12 to 10 seconds max. The abilities are: hibernate, entangling roots, freezing trap, scare beast, polymorph, mind control, sap, banish, seduction, enslave demon and fear.

• Pets will no longer chase players that Vanish.

• An enchanting recipe for +20 agility on a one handed weapon will be introduced.

• Druids: no other major changes

• Hunters getting better mana regeneration with Aspect of the Viper at low mana levels, buffing their usefulness in raids and instances.

• Mages: no other major changes

• Paladins are getting their buff durations increased but getting Blessing of Freedom, Blessing of Sacrifice and Blessing of Protection nerfed, which many feel is a big overall nerf to their class.

• Priests: Overall a bit nerfed in PvP (especially against paladins), since mass dispel can now be resisted. Otherwise nothing major (except the DoT nerf)

• Rogues: No huge changes, but buffed by the fact that pets will no longer follow after Vanish, and Earthbind totem will no longer break stealth. The talent Elusiveness has been nerfed to only reduce the cooldown on blind by 8/15 seconds instead of 45/90.

• Shamans: Not really buffed by themselves (except resto getting slightly better) but since shamans have no CC abilities then they are really getting a bit buffed in that CC gets nerfed.

• Warlocks: Their CC abilities are getting nerfed like everyone else’s, including fear. And they’re getting hit by the DoT nerf in PvP.

• Warriors: No major changes.

• Nexus crytals will be obsoleted. Their use as a reagent will disappear from most enchants, to be replaced with small prismatic shards at a 1:1 ratio. Enchanters will be able to turn 1 nexus crystal into 1 small prismatic shard.

• Primal Earth, Shadow, Air and Life are getting introduced instead of "Azerothian mats" in some enchanting recipes.

• Greater planar essence is replacing Large Brilliant Shards in 7 recipes

• Acquiring reputation with Timbermaw Hold, Argent Dawn and Cenarion Circle will be significantly easier.

My comments:

Perhaps the biggest thing about this patch is everything that didn’t get fixed. If you read the class forums you’ll see that many classes are complaining about issues that Blizzard have promised to fix not being addressed in this patch. From that point of view it’s mostly a bug fix patch, perhaps to clear the way for some class balance tweaking in the future.

The DoT and crowd control nerf is the "big" news in this patch. Blizzard are taking more steps to give players more control of their character in PvP. The problem is that some classes compete by being able to use CC so this doesn’t really level the playing field, it creates more imbalance. Classes (like shamans) that don’t have any CC of their own get buffed every time CC is nerfed.

While the DoT nerf was indeed a blow to shadowpriests and warlocks in arenas, another huge buff to those classes is in development: no more gear swapping in arenas. Many teams have been swapping to shadow resistance gear when facing spriests or warlocks (mods can enable you to change all gear with one click) rendering their opponents all but useless. With gear swapping being disallowed it will be even harder to win against those classes. I’m talking mostly about 2vs2 and 3vs3 here, since swapping gear to buff one resistance isn’t a good idea in 5vs5 anyway.

The reputation buff to Argent Dawn, Timbermaw Hold and Cenarion Circle is nice if you want to get any reputation rewards from those factions, for example Powerful Anti-Venom.

Last but not least, some prices for enchanting mats are bound to change as their demand goes up or down. If I were to speculate I’d say that…

• nexus crystals will fall in price to the same level as small prismatic shards
• greater planar essences should increase in price
• large brilliant shards should fall in price
• primal earth, air, shadow and life should go up a bit.

Draw your own conclusions and act accordingly.

Guide updates:

I’ve updated the alliance and horde cooking guides so you can use them to skill up 1-375 very fast. This is worthwhile even if you don’t have fishing since much of the flesh that drops off of normal mobs in Outlands can be cooked and sold for 1 g a piece! Fishing takes a long time to skill up, but if you want the best chance at doing it as fast as possible, take a look at the fishing guide included with the Cash Creating Guide. It’s superb even if you don’t know how to cast a line.

Killer Guides Warlock Guide has also been completely revised for The Burning Crusade. I have not had time to update the review yet but I will let you know when I have!