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[Entropia]

Feels like the class balance is more off than it has been in awhile, but maybe they just need us to level our artifacts more? Maybe?

I doubt the yet-to-be-gotten 'golden traits' from artifact weapons at this point will cause any balance between classes. It's clear what the weak and strong specs are right now.

 

[Lain]

The Justice's Flame skin for the Holy Paladin artifact isn't live, right?
Looking at the various skins, I'd say Valorous and Hidden are the ones I like most, but in the end I don't really like the look of the artifact. Granted, I also don't like the look of the Ret and Prot artifacts but at least they don't stick like sore thumbs on my back like that ugly hammer does. The book part doesn't even sits in the right spot when transformed into a broken!

 

[water_wendi]

I doubt the yet-to-be-gotten 'golden traits' from artifact weapons at this point will cause any balance between classes. It's clear what the weak and strong specs are right now.

ive only played a handful of classes/specs with artifacts so far and each so far seem to have at least one gold trait that is either really good to amazingly strong. Someone mentioned that the Frost DKs Sindragosas Fury makes the class feel like a Pom Pyro Mage because that ability is basically an instagib button (2000% of attack power to all enemies in front of you for 40 yards and a 50% slow for 10 seconds). For the Blood DK i worked toward toward Unending Thirst (when Blood Shield is up you get 25% Leech and Death Strike does 25% more damage) but i did so going the left path and not the right one which definitely impacted my DPS until i can get 3 points into the Marrowrend trait which buffs one of my main attacks by 24%.

Anyway.. my point is that traits can be really strong so it is possible to "gimp" yourself by spending traits unwisely.

 

[Robin64]

The Justice's Flame skin for the Holy Paladin artifact isn't live, right?

None of the third row ones are, they require raiding. Though you can get started on them, you reach a point where you're told to wait for raids.

 

[Lain]

Also, I found this funny while doing the Ashbringer quest:

He didn't come with me because he was to wait and look for the reinforcements. He should have used the good eye for the excuse to be believable though!

 

[Mupod]

It kinda sucks keeping two artifacts at parity. I still don't have a solid raid spot despite being in a guild that will definitely be raiding. I'm not expecting to get a tank spot but it seems their usual MT has nowhere near the gear level to raid yet for some reason. And I'm about as geared as I can be at the moment short of finding a Legendary.

Unholy's DPS has gotten dramatically better as I unlocked more traits. Unlike my Blood relic I built it with a specific plan in mind. The Shambler in particular actually surprised me how huge of an improvement it was, I shot past all of the people I was struggling to keep up with in dungeon AOE situations. I still need more practice with the spec though, I'm sure I'll be fine after some raiding.

Even worse than splitting artifact power is the theoretical Legendary drop I'll get one day. I'm set to Unholy loot spec but if I find one for that, then I won't have one for Mythic+ tanking. If I find one for Blood, then i won't have one for raid DPS. I guess I'll worry about it when I find one...so far only two people in my guild have, and one of those was 2 weeks ago.

 

[erawsd]

Feels like the class balance is more off than it has been in awhile, but maybe they just need us to level our artifacts more? Maybe?

I dont know if its any more off than any other expansion's start. We wont really know how bad it is until raid data starts to roll in. 5man content is always a weird barometer for class balance since high burst/cleave specs can put out some ridiculous numbers just due to the fact that nothing lives long.

Thats not say that there arent specs who are not where they need to be regardless.

 

[twobear]

ive only played a handful of classes/specs with artifacts so far and each so far seem to have at least one gold trait that is either really good to amazingly strong. Someone mentioned that the Frost DKs Sindragosas Fury makes the class feel like a Pom Pyro Mage because that ability is basically an instagib button (2000% of attack power to all enemies in front of you for 40 yards and a 50% slow for 10 seconds). For the Blood DK i worked toward toward Unending Thirst (when Blood Shield is up you get 25% Leech and Death Strike does 25% more damage) but i did so going the left path and not the right one which definitely impacted my DPS until i can get 3 points into the Marrowrend trait which buffs one of my main attacks by 24%.

Anyway.. my point is that traits can be really strong so it is possible to "gimp" yourself by spending traits unwisely.

yeah, the (gold) artifact ability traits seem kind of all over the place to be honest; arcane gets

Touch of the Magi

Arcane Blast has a 10% chance to apply Touch of the Magi, accumulating 20% of the damage you deal to the target for 6 sec, and then exploding for that amount of Arcane damage to the target and all nearby enemies.

it doesn't really take very long to realise that this is an almost completely worthless trait for a class that's based around hardcasting a spell with a >2 second cast time (shorter with significant quickening stacks sure) and getting lucky with AM procs. you're just concatenating chance on chance. you can't even time it to make sure you drop mark of aluneth when it procs because mark has a 6 second duration and a 2 second cast, so the big chunk of damage at the end will fall outside of touch of the magi's window.

and then to rub salt in the wound they removed its ability to double dip on multipliers and the explosion's ability to crit

also, mastery appears to be arcane's least useful secondary stat. as in, haste, crit, and versatility are all more valuable than the class' attuned stat xd

 

[crpav]

So as a Ret Pali with already little time for raiding and "hard" stuff my options are "enjoy" the "solo" stuff or cancel my account? Okay!

 

[Robin64]

"Echo of the Highlord
Ashbringer mimics Templar's Verdict and Divine Storm, dealing 10% of normal damage."

An extra 10% damage on two spells? Fucking hell Blizz, you are really spoiling us retadins!

Or you go for the practically mandatory Ashes to Ashes but have to go along a path that is, basically, shit.

 

[Anoregon]

So as a Ret Pali with already little time for raiding and "hard" stuff my options are "enjoy" the "solo" stuff or cancel my account? Okay!

What are the expected alternatives? Raids have always been a fairly significant time commitment.

 

[Slathe]

So I'm at ilvl 836, this means I start mythic right? Are mythic dungeons only available by building groups, no lfr?

Also does anyone know how the world quest reward items are determined? Is it random based on ilvl?

I'm a bit confused by progression from this point and the reddit is not helpful.

 

[Entropia]

So I'm at ilvl 836, this means I start mythic right? Are mythic dungeons only available by building groups, no lfr?

Also does anyone know how the world quest reward items are determined? Is it random based on ilvl?

I'm a bit confused by progression from this point and the reddit is not helpful.

Mythic dungeons need a pre-made group, so no random LFG for those.

836 is definitely do-able for mythics, you probably can start at 825 to be honest.

World Quest ilvl rewards a bit random, I got the SAME trinket from two different world quests. One was an epic at 840, the other was a blue at 825.

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

So I'm at ilvl 836, this means I start mythic right? Are mythic dungeons only available by building groups, no lfr?

Also does anyone know how the world quest reward items are determined? Is it random based on ilvl?

I'm a bit confused by progression from this point and the reddit is not helpful.

You should be in Mythic, yeah. Did my first one as a resto shaman at 821 and it wasn't too bad.

 

[water_wendi]

"Echo of the Highlord
Ashbringer mimics Templar's Verdict and Divine Storm, dealing 10% of normal damage."

An extra 10% damage on two spells? Fucking hell Blizz, you are really spoiling us retadins!

It doesnt seem exciting from the description (is there an animation for Ashbringer doing this?) but those are like your main hitting abilities right? 10% increase sounds pretty good to me but just looking at the other Ashbringer traits id probably go for the other two gold traits first (the one that shoots Divine Storm to all enemies 20 yards in front of you and the one that boosts your artifact ability to give you full holy power every 30 seconds accompanied with an AoE DoT.. actually id do that one first).

 

[Robin64]

It doesnt seem exciting from the description (is there an animation for Ashbringer doing this?) but those are like your main hitting abilities right? 10% increase sounds pretty good to me but just looking at the other Ashbringer traits id probably go for the other two gold traits first (the one that shoots Divine Storm to all enemies 20 yards in front of you and the one that boosts your artifact ability to give you full holy power every 30 seconds accompanied with an AoE DoT.. actually id do that one first).

There is a little effect when it happens, that's the best bit. But to have this as a gold talent is odd when there are already earlier talents that do 6% extra for Templar's Verdict and 15% extra for Divine Storm. This is just those, again. It should have an additional modifier, like "Sometimes those abilities cost no Holy Power"

And yeah, Ashes to Ashes is the gold to go for first, but the path to get to is so shit that all the guides tell you to get there and then do nothing else, saving up 67,000 Artifact Power so you can do a reset and get to it via a better longer path.

 

[Lanrutcon]

I dont know if its any more off than any other expansion's start. We wont really know how bad it is until raid data starts to roll in. 5man content is always a weird barometer for class balance since high burst/cleave specs can put out some ridiculous numbers just due to the fact that nothing lives long.

Thats not say that there arent specs who are not where they need to be regardless.

This isn't true anymore. It used to be true when raiding was the only endgame in town.

Mythic+ is suppose to function alongside raids. If a spec performs like shit in dungeons then it is a real problem. Balancing that class for raids does nothing to solve the problem, and Blizzard's talk of not giving all classes baseline equality when it comes to mobility, resource management, etc indicates that shit is just going to get worse.

 

[Rhaknar]

So as a Ret Pali with already little time for raiding and "hard" stuff my options are "enjoy" the "solo" stuff or cancel my account? Okay!

wait...what? you say you have little time for raids so what exactly do you want?

is this a "ret palis get kicked from mythic groups" thing? Cant you do it with some friends? Ill do mythics with any class I dont give a fuck lol

 

[Tenebrous]

So as a Ret Pali with already little time for raiding and "hard" stuff my options are "enjoy" the "solo" stuff or cancel my account? Okay!

Or try Holy/Protection & get into a group easily. Little sympathy for hybrids that won't try an OS in content they overgear anyway.

 

[Sarek]

Mining / herbing WQ is pretty nice at the moment. 5k+ gold every 3(?) days for killing one mob and picking up one flower.

 

[water_wendi]

There is a little effect when it happens, that's the best bit. But to have this as a gold talent is odd when there are already earlier talents that do 6% extra for Templar's Verdict and 15% extra for Divine Storm. This is just those, again. It should have an additional modifier, like "Sometimes those abilities cost no Holy Power"

Yeah its not exciting but at least you can take comfort in that many classes/spec has that one gold trait that while nice is just a % increase.

Blood DK: Skeletal Shattering - Every time a Bone Shield charge is used there is a chance based on your Crit chance to absorb another 8%

Frost DK: this one is an outlier because as Frost you dont get an usable artifact ability like everyone else.. you start with the shitty passive and have to work towards Sindragosas Fury.

Unholy DK: Double Doom - Sudden Doom can get two charges and happens 15% more frequently.

Vengeance DK: Painbringer - Each Soul Fragment reduces damage by 3% for 4 seconds.

And yeah, Ashes to Ashes is the gold to go for first, but the path to get to is so shit that all the guides tell you to get there and then do nothing else, saving up 67,000 Artifact Power so you can do a reset and get to it via a better longer path.

ill take your word for it since ive barely scratched Ret so far. ill have to look into more about respeccing. Seems kind of ridiculous when you can just start building down the opposite side to pick up the flat % damage increases.

 

[Mupod]

we have a ret paladin in our regular mythic group. Last night we cleared almost all of them in a few hours and our damage meter was a pretty even 25% between the four of us. He seems to be doing fine.

 

[water_wendi]

What is considered the worst class/spec in the game right now? i think thats going to be my next 110.

 

[Anoregon]

What is considered the worst class/spec in the game right now? i think thats going to be my next 110.

Frost DK, probably any warlock spec (maybe affliction specifically), depending on who you ask ele shaman and shadow priest are also pretty low.

 

[Mupod]

What is considered the worst class/spec in the game right now? i think thats going to be my next 110.

According to the official WoW forums, the worst class is whatever class forum you look at.

People seem to generally agree that Frost DK is shit tier but Blood and Unholy are fine. Personally I like how Frost plays but I can see its problems even when soloing. It just has nothing going for it.

 

[Sölf]

Frost DK, probably any warlock spec (maybe affliction specifically), depending on who you ask ele shaman and shadow priest are also pretty low.

And I refuse to not be a Frost DK unless they bring Blood DPS back.

 

[erawsd]

This isn't true anymore. It used to be true when raiding was the only endgame in town.

Mythic+ is suppose to function alongside raids. If a spec performs like shit in dungeons then it is a real problem. Balancing that class for raids does nothing to solve the problem, and Blizzard's talk of not giving all classes baseline equality when it comes to mobility, resource management, etc indicates that shit is just going to get worse.

Whether it should or shouldnt is debatable, but I think spec balance will def continue to revolve around raid performance. We've had challenge modes for years now that should have encouraged more balance toward 5man content and its never happened. I dont expect Mythic+ to be any different, especially when Blizzard has given itself a bit of an out with keystones that incentivize people to group with you regardless.

 

[Rhaknar]

huh got all the 4 pillars before 110, welp, time to clear out some more zones then.

this talent where a crane zips around healing people might be my favorite spell in the game, so good. I did no0t see monk sneaking up on me like this at all

 

[water_wendi]

According to the official WoW forums, the worst class is whatever class forum you look at.

People seem to generally agree that Frost DK is shit tier but Blood and Unholy are fine. Personally I like how Frost plays but I can see its problems even when soloing. It just has nothing going for it.

Frost DK, probably any warlock spec (maybe affliction specifically), depending on who you ask ele shaman and shadow priest are also pretty low.

Ah well im already a 110 DK. i did play Frost during the beta. i might have to try leveling up my Alliance DK as Frost and see how it goes. In the meantime it seems Affliction Warlock and Shadow Priest are next.

And I refuse to not be a Frost DK unless they bring Blood DPS back.

Bring back Unholy Tank!

 

[Anoregon]

Whether it should or shouldnt is debatable, but I think spec balance will def continue to revolve around raid performance. We've had challenge modes for years now that should have encouraged more balance toward 5man content and its never happened. I dont expect Mythic+ to be any different, especially when Blizzard has given itself a bit of an out with keystones that incentivize people to group with you regardless.

Challenge modes were never an actual progression path/dedicated end game activity though, they were just there for cosmetic/prestige. Mythic+ actually matter more for balance due to being an explicit alternate progression path to raiding.

That being said, I would be surprised if a lot of effort is put into making sure that the specs are as well balanced for 5-mans than for raids.

 

[Rizzi]

Frost DK, probably any warlock spec (maybe affliction specifically), depending on who you ask ele shaman and shadow priest are also pretty low.

I dunno, my shadow priest does pretty good single target damage. Just don't ask me for any aoe, like ever.

 

[Rhaknar]

err what does a red completion % mean? I mean...it says 120% but its red? Its always green...

should I do it or what?

 

[Rizzi]

err what does a red completion % mean? I mean...it says 120% but its red? Its always green...



should I do it or what?

You dont have the item level on your champions to do it. It'll probably fail.

 

[erawsd]

Challenge modes were never an actual progression path though, they were just there for cosmetic/prestige. Mythic+ actually matter more for balance due to being an explicit alternate progression path to raiding.

That being said, I would be surprised if a lot of effort is put into making sure that the specs are as well balanced for 5-mans than for raids.

I'm not sure I'd even call it an alternate path, its more of a right lane unless you are a very casual player. The fact that Watcher has said that there wont be any tier sets in mythic+ suggests to me that they still want to prop raids up as the "true" end game.

 

[Metroidvania]

There is a little effect when it happens, that's the best bit. But to have this as a gold talent is odd when there are already earlier talents that do 6% extra for Templar's Verdict and 15% extra for Divine Storm. This is just those, again. It should have an additional modifier, like "Sometimes those abilities cost no Holy Power"

And yeah, Ashes to Ashes is the gold to go for first, but the path to get to is so shit that all the guides tell you to get there and then do nothing else, saving up 67,000 Artifact Power so you can do a reset and get to it via a better longer path.

Yeah, ret feels weird, even for a 'support' DPS theme (which, incidentally, is not something I imagine that many, if any, DPS wants to be told)

The divine storm fling golden talent just feels like it's going to introduce a lot of hassle in trash pulls, and while I'll have to see the math when we get bonus traits for, say, Righteous blade with 2 or 3 bonus points, it just feels weird to imagine using DS on a single target rotation.

Plus, as you say, we have other tree points for BOTH Templar's verdict and Divine storm damage increases, so just having Ashbringer duplicate 10% of 40-60% (just going off of my logs, which admittedly could be off) of our damage isn't even a flat 10% increase to damage as-is.

There's some moderately cool stuff, like the one tree point which makes Divine storm proc friendly auto-heals, but....still super odd.

 

[sora87]

What is considered the worst class/spec in the game right now? i think thats going to be my next 110.

My shadow priest seems very, very weak compared to everyone else right now

 

[Rhaknar]

Monk makes 3 110s

Thats it for now alts wise, gonna work hard on the monk now for the rest of the week

 

[Rizzi]

... got gear from my emissary crate.
810 gloves. That's.. that's just the best.

 

[Magnus]

Gonna move forward on the Paladin alt. Which spec? Ret really as bad as everyone says?

 

[Hixx]

... got gear from my emissary crate.
810 gloves. That's.. that's just the best.

Haha. I got a Blood of Sargeras and a 110 ring.

Bring back the Gold!

 

[Rizzi]

Haha. I got a Blood of Sargeras and a 110 ring.

Bring back the Gold!

:|

 

[Draxal]

Gonna move forward on the Paladin alt. Which spec? Ret really as bad as everyone says?

Prot for the fastest leveling. Ret is just pretty boring, slow, utterly gear dependent (need 30% haste for the rotation to not be clunky). Prot's kinda boring as well leveling wise, but at least their talented divine steed is better than rets.

 

[Magnus]

Prot for the fastest leveling. Ret is just pretty boring, slow, utterly gear dependent (need 30% haste for the rotation to not be clunky). Prot's kinda boring as well leveling wise, but at least their talented divine steed is better than rets.

Cool, will do. Had a guildie say Holy's DPS was actually #1 right now. Plenty of instant-cast attacks and shit. Truth?

 

[Lain]

Cool, will do. Had a guildie say Holy's DPS was actually #1 right now. Plenty of instant-cast attacks and shit. Truth?

Holy shock can do some nice damage, between the artifact crit dmg upgrade, the talent to lower the cooldown with every crusader strike and the boost from judgement.
I feel like I kill stuff faster as holy (single target) leveling up unless I get some lucky back to back proc on the shield as prot.

 

[ebil]

If we're talking about solo leveling and solo in general, Holy indeed does good DPS but it's IMO quite boring (you need specific talents or you'll have gaps in your rotation) and Prot feels more self-sufficient. It's also better at AOE.

I usually do group content as Holy and solo as Prot unless I really want to mess around as Ret

 

[Couchaddict]

It's only level 101 but killing as Prot was slow but you can kill multiple targets as once.

It's also slow as Ret & don't over extend the number of mods you killing.

I think I am going to try Holy now because this is a little boring.

 

[cdyhybrid]

Holy shock can do some nice damage, between the artifact crit dmg upgrade, the talent to lower the cooldown with every crusader strike and the boost from judgement.
I feel like I kill stuff faster as holy (single target) leveling up unless I get some lucky back to back proc on the shield as prot.

That may be true but you should never be fighting single targets as Prot while leveling

 

[Anoregon]

It's only level 101 but killing as Prot was slow but you can kill multiple targets as once.

It's also slow as Ret & don't over extend the number of mods you killing.

That's generally the case for all tank specs - single target damage is lower than DPS specs, but you can pull like a half dozen mobs pretty easily and aoe them all down much faster than a DPS could single target 6 mobs.

 

[Robin64]

The divine storm fling golden talent just feels like it's going to introduce a lot of hassle in trash pulls

I'm super worried about this one and I can see a world where I don't actually take it. Judgment alone causes enough hassle, bouncing to something it shouldn't and grabbing it, I can't imagine a world where my massive AoE is hurtling its way down a corridor.

 

[ArtistDude88]

I hopped back into WoW after years (played 1 month of Cata) and am slowly adjusting to the vast amount of changes. Had intended to play with friends and co-workers but so far all I've done is play alone...

SO! Is there a GAF guild? I don't know how the cross-realm stuff works but I'm Alliance, mainly on Executus. I need some people to talk to/play with 'cause I'm getting rather bored/lonely.

OGSaavedro#1450