Pig & Whistle Tales - A World of Warcraft Podcast

Mastering the Latest World of Warcraft Updates: Class Changes, Talents, and Gameplay Insights

• Gabriel • Season 4 • Episode 80

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This episode dives into the significant class changes introduced in World of Warcraft's patch 11.1. We explore how these updates impact gameplay, featuring insights on Death Knights, Demon Hunters, and Druids, while previewing future changes for Hunters.

• Discussing weekly news highlights and events in WoW
• Analyzing Death Knight adjustments and their impact on survivability
• Examining the potential power creep for Demon Hunters
• Investigating Druid talent changes and their implications for gameplay
• Previewing upcoming Hunter reworks and their significance

Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!

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Speaker 1:

Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go for a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft, so grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this episode. We'll be looking at some more 11.1 changes we're going to be looking at now. I said that this is going to take a while, but we are going to tackle all of the class changes that are coming within 11.1. I'm going to try and tackle the main ones Now. Obviously there are a lot here, so this is going to be over the course of multiple, but I will try and do a few classes each uh episode, essentially. So we will start off with the weekly news, as always this weekly news. We have shirai atrocity of the undersea as your world boss for the week. He can be located within the top left of Hallowfall.

Speaker 1:

Mists of Pandaria Time Walking is your not brawl bonus event for the week, and there are new Mists of Pandaria Time Walking things that you can buy with the Time Walking badges. So head on over to the Timeless Isles and get yourself some of these bits and bobs. They are really good. Head on over to the timeless aisles and get yourself some of these bits and bobs. They are really good. I do want to also point out, as of when I bought them, it might've been hot fixed, but the Emperor Shaohao I think his name is reputation. If you buy the currency from the time walking badge vendor, it's currently bugged. It gave me thousand per like turn in when it's meant to give you 300 or 400. So maybe buy that and you know, just putting it out there just for now. They're probably hot fixed or I've got something on the account that might help me increase the reputation gain. I don't know, but definitely check it out.

Speaker 1:

Um, packed House is your brawl for this week. Packed House is essentially a 15 versus 15 brawl. You are lobbed all into an arena and its first team to lose all of their players loses the arena. Very simple. Ascendant and Tyrannical are your Mythica fixes for this week. Ascendant is very simple Orbs fall down from the sky. Cc the orbs and get a buff. Very simple, nice and easy. And finally, tyrannical. The boss and the mobs that they spawn have increased health and damage for the week. So bring a talent build that can definitely accommodate for that. So what we are looking at with.

Speaker 1:

The changes are going to be starting off in alphabetical order, so you're going to have dks and then demon hunters. Next. Now for dks. Apparently they are looking, uh, quite survivable, apparently. So the development notes that currently frost and unholy dks are incredibly survivable, often boasting lower death rates than tanks and far above any other specs in the game. This is because they have AMZ or AMS on a proc chance, which is ridiculous From a fantasy perspective. It makes sense for death knights to be incredibly durable and their kit lends itself to do it well, but it currently leans too far in the unkillable direction. We fully expect Frosted and Unholy decays to continue being one of the most survivable specs, but this should bring them closer to more of the same level. This makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Frost, veteran of the third war, now increases stamina by 12. Was 25 and 6 in p. Pvp was 10. Okay, very substantial. Null Magic now reduces the magic damage you take by 5%. Reduces yeah, sorry, was 8. And 3% in PvP was 4. Okay, permafrost now generates an absorbed shield of 30% of your auto-attack damage. Was 40% Permafrost. I don't believe was taken by Frost DKs, but you can correct me if I'm wrong, but still, this is a very substantial nerf.

Speaker 1:

Unholy veteran of the third war has been reduced. We know that no magic has had the same. Permafrost is the same, and then apocalypse and raised dead. Now summon ghouls instantly and apocalypse and raised dead. Visuals have been updated. So essentially these are the same changes for both frost and unholy dks and it is an all around nerf for the class. Okay, these are nerfs to its survivability, not its damage, okay, so please bear that in mind if you're doing pvp content, pve content, um for demon hunters. Now, actually, when I go over the dk, class changes one or any class changes, what I'm going to do is give my sort of um thoughts on it.

Speaker 1:

So, from a pvp perspective, dks are a little bit too tanky. This is a caster perspective, this is not a melee dps perspective, by the way. So whenever I'm fighting a dk, they are sometimes very unkillable for me because they randomly proc anti-magic shell. They will have in a decently long game, potentially up to 50 mil like healing done. Okay, and it's not actual healing, it's absorbed shields and this comes from anti-magic shell and this is just like six different increments of anti-magic shell working essentially and it is a bit ridiculous. So I'm glad that they're targeting their survivability, um, and not their damage, because I think their damage is fine, it's on par with most things. I think the survivability is a bit stupid. I think, honestly, the worst thing that dks have right now is that automatic proc of anti-magic shell and that's a caster pov. I get that. But this means that they are a lot more durable against just some compositions in comparison to others, and I think that's why you see some sort of botched numbers there, because if a dk goes up against a lot of casters, they're going to be less likely to die in comparison to going up against two melee DPS kind of deal. So you know, there's a lot of things there, but I think this is fine. I think that they are one of the tankiest specs in the game and you can certainly feel it in a PvP aspect and probably PvE as well.

Speaker 1:

Demon Hunters so Demon Hunters have been underperforming, in my honest opinion, um in every aspect of the game. But the problem with demon hunters okay, demon hunter tanks, I think are fine right now the problem with demon hunters from a pvp perspective is they don't really have a lot of utility outside of just raw damage. In my honest opinion, they really don't. Um, and the problem with that is, over the past couple of patches they have slowly been power creeping. The demon hunters damage okay, and it's going to get to a critical point where it will just explode and they will be unstoppable until nerfed. Ok, it always happens. It's called a power creep in the game and this is what is happening with DHs. In my honest opinion, I think that there will be a power creep in the game. It's as simple as that.

Speaker 1:

So in prison now breaks based on small damage threshold instead of any damage. This is something that is going to happen going forward. This is going to happen to a lot of cc in the game, so bear in mind that I will be saying this for a lot of cc to come. Um, this isn't bad, but a lot of demon hunters anyway take detainment, so it kind of makes them just. It kind of makes this change irrelevant because they are now immune to damage. It's kind of like a cyclone when they take the PvP talent detainment. It makes sense that Imprison now breaks on small damage thresholds for PvE, but from a PvP standpoint, I don't think this will affect it much.

Speaker 1:

Spectral Sight has been reworked, no longer removed upon taking an action or damage. It is removed now via a magic dispel or a loss of a character, a cc, essentially. So if you stun the target, if it gets magic purged, anything like that, that is how you get out of the spectral site. So, rogues, if you're curing with a rogue mage, druid, you're going to hope that that mage spell steals the spectral sight. Ok, you just got to hope. That's all you can do If you are like myself, queuing boomy hunter, holy paladin, you don't have a magic dispel, you just got to run in, do some damage, kill them. All right, you know there is no sneaking around in this cat form and stuff. It is just as simple as you got to run in. You got to start around in this cat form and stuff. It is just as simple as you gotta run in. You gotta start doing damage and just get on their ass, essentially, and kill them. Um, the movement penalty has been reduced to 20 was 30, so they move a bit faster in this spectral site as well. And lost in darkness has been redesigned. Spectral site has a five second reduced cooldown and no longer uh reduces movement speed. This is not going to have any sort of effect at all. Um, hero talents fell scarred. Your demon surge now deals reduced damage beyond eight targets not really going to be a problem in most aspects of the game. So demon hunters have a new talent now as well.

Speaker 1:

Screaming brutality. Blade dance automatically triggers Throw Glaive on your primary target for 100% of the damage and each slash has a 50% chance to Throw Glaive at an enemy for 35% of damage. This is a really, really good talent From a PvP standpoint and from a talent standpoint in general. Your throw glaive does so much value for you, but it doesn't feel like a good or fun button to press. So you throw glaive and essentially it puts debuffs on the target that increase the damage done by a certain magical type, and this is just really, really good. It also puts a bleed on them. It also does multiple other things, but your blade or your throw glaive is a very important part to your kit, so having something that does this automatically, like baked into the rotation, is crazy good. It really really is, and that is a giant buff, in my honest opinion.

Speaker 1:

For Havoc Demon Hunters. Momentum, renamed Exergy, has been updated. The Hunt and Vengeful Retreat increases your damage by 5% for 20 seconds. 5% damage increase is nothing to scoff at, but depends where it is in the talent tree. Inertia has been updated. The hunt and vengeful retreat cause your next fell rush or fell blade to empower you, increasing damage by 18 for five seconds. Okay, now we're getting um into the dangerous territory. So what? You can vengeful retreat into the hunt. Yeah, you can just vengeful retreat into a 25 23 damage increase for five seconds. How crazy is that? Um, unbound chaos has been updated. The hunt and vengeful retreat cause your next fell rush or fatal blade to deal 500 increased damage. Okay, um, this is getting a bit ridiculous. So you're going to have in one ability, have it increased damage of a certain spell by 523, because if you vengeful retreat, you get the five percent from one talent, 18 from another, 500 from another, and then you fell rush someone. They're bringing back the fell rush build. It's 100% the fell rush build again, where you're just dashing through people and killing them with a fell rush and movement ability. This shouldn't be a thing. It really, really shouldn't.

Speaker 1:

Cycle of hatred has been redesigned. Ibeam reduced the cooldown of your next ibeam by 2.5 slash 5 seconds, stacking up to 20 seconds. Okay, interesting, that's gonna be quite obnoxious because ibeam into ibeam, you know you won't get ibeam back immediately, but you know, um, ibeam gives metamorphosis uptime and having metamorphosis uptime is really really strong for demon hunters. It just is in general, so gonna have to see how this one plays out, but I don't think it's too bad. Um, exergy and inertia inertia, yeah, choice node has swapped locations with unbound chaos and any means necessary has been removed. Okay, very simple. Um vengeance demon spike duration, increased to eight seconds, was six. This is a massive buff for dh tanks and a circular binding effect is now triggered by sigil of flame uh was all sigil skills and reduced sigil. Uh skill cooldown by five seconds was two. So this is a big buff.

Speaker 1:

And to vengeanceters, I thought they were performing quite well, in my honest opinion, in PvE. I don't see any in PvP, so I can't really comment, but this is a huge damage reduction buff, essentially. Now some people might be thinking oh, there aren't the new talents that are getting put in for PvP. I haven't mentioned them, or whatever. They are at the very bottom, they are in their own section, so I will go over them at a later date. Okay, please bear with me, I will get to that point eventually. It just there is a lot here. Um for druid. Well, before we carry on, thereoc is going to be insane next season. You can write this down, mark my words next season it's going to be a very, very good DPS in both PvE and PvP, mainly because you get that new talent where when you Blade Dance it throws your Glaive. That is going to be criminally overlooked in the PTR. In my honest opinion, it really will be, and it's going to be aally overlooked in the ptr. In my honest opinion, it really will be, and it's going to be a game changer for dhs. It just will be.

Speaker 1:

Druid many talents have changed positions in the talent tree, so new talent or new talents are grievous rune wounds, your rake, rip and thrash, damage increased by 10. Very simple gale winds increases typhoon's radius by 20% and its range by 5% or five yards. That's very good. So this was originally two talents, but they have been now morphed into one, so very good. New talent incessant tempest reduce the cooldown of your typhoon by five seconds. Okay, so you can have a super obnoxious typhoon. Build new talent circle of the wild physical damage dealt by your abilities increased by five percent. Twenty-five percent for restoration druids. New talent circle of the heavens magical damage dealt by your spells increased by five percent. Twenty-five percent for resto druids. I like this one. That one's good.

Speaker 1:

New talent lycara's meditation. So you retain Lycara's Teachings bonus from your most recent form for five seconds after shifting out of it. Now, this one is going to be really good in my honest opinion. So what Lycara's Teachings is is essentially, when you go into a certain form, you get a six percent buff increase on your stats. Okay. So if you're going to bear form, you get versatility. If you go into normal form, you get mastery. No, if you're going to boomkin form, you get mastery. If you go into normal form, you get haste. And if you go into cat form, you get crit. Okay. So, having these stacks, like you just go into bear form for defensive purposes, then you hop out and you've got five seconds of six percent more versatility, as well as having, um, the mastery buff, the six percent mastery buff. So this is really really good and something that is going to be very strong for druids going into this patch.

Speaker 1:

New talent symbolic relationship form, a bond with an ally. Your self-healing also heals your bonded ally for 10 of the amount healed. Your healing to your bonded ally also heals you for eight percent of the amount healed. Um, the healing to your bonded ally also okay, um, I'm not gonna lie, this isn't a great talent. You do not warrant enough healing done by regrowth to utilize this talent genuinely. And that's the problem. Everyone else, every defensive in pvp, every sort of damage reduction shields they are all more impactful than regrowth. They really really are. There's rarely a time when you can spam regrowth to top yourself back to full Genuinely in a 3v3 arena. It doesn't happen. It really really doesn't. And this means that this talent is kind of dead. If they made regrowth a bit more impactful, then, yes, you're going to look at this talent, maybe a bit better, but honestly, it's not going to look at this talent maybe a bit better, but honestly, it's not going to do anything. Straight up, this is a dead talent.

Speaker 1:

Next new talent is a seen as renewal. I think when a hit deals more than 12% of your maximum health, instantly heal for 10% of your health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds. This is good and I think that this is going to be very, very good. New talent perfectly honed instincts. Well-honed instincts can trigger once up to every 90 seconds, not just 120 seconds. This is very good. I'm glad this is coming back and this is really going to help the defensive qualities of a druid.

Speaker 1:

Ursoc's spirit has been updated. Stamina increased by four percent. Stamina in bare form is increased by an additional five percent. Very simple, um, they do know that these bonuses multiply together. So druid's health in bare form remains unchanged, essentially, um. Light of the sun replaces skull bash for balanced dru only. This is essentially the remaining. Cooldown of your solar beam is reduced by 15 seconds when it interrupts the primary target Very good, improved.

Speaker 1:

Rejuve has been changed to Lingering Healing. Rejuvenation's duration is increased by 3 seconds. Regrowth duration is increased by 3 seconds when cast near yourself. Useless talent for anyone but restoo Druids, in my honest opinion. Instincts of the Claw is now a 1 point. Talent was 2 and has been updated. Ferocious Bite and Maul damage has been increased by 8%. Very simple, very good. Lore of the Grove is now a 1 point. Talent was 2. Use Moonfire and Sunfire damage increased by 10%. Very simple, very good, very good.

Speaker 1:

Fluid form has been updated. Skull bash can now be used in any form and shifts you into cat form if necessary. This is a very good change. This adds to the fluidity of the sort of shape-shifting for druids, very good. And then you have some basic sort of healing and damage increase and damage reductions here rejuve increased by five percent. Wild growth increased by five percent. Rip reduced by nine percent. Shred and swipe damage increased by ten percent. Ferocious bite damage reduced by eight percent. Cyclone duration is now 5 seconds, was 6. Disorienting Raw now breaks on a small damage threshold instead of any damage.

Speaker 1:

Rising Light, falling Night has been removed. Okay for Druids overall, as just looking at this we're not looking at the sort of spec-specific stuff yet as an overall you get nerfed. Okay, cyclone being five seconds, huge nerf, absolutely massive for PvP, as well as Rising Light, falling Knight being removed. Rising Light, falling Knight being removed Huge nerf. That was just versatility or haste. Okay, it was good, and it was just stats, not a great talent point, didn't feel amazing, but you get stats from it, so it's good. As for that, feral at the moment currently is in the gutter Because 8% off of Ferocious Bite, 9% off of Rip rip. That is really bad, really really bad for your single target damage and even your cleave damage. You're from your rip. That is really rough, I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 1:

The healing increase doesn't really do much. Probably for resto druids it still won't do enough, um, so we'll carry on with druids and see what the spec specific stuff has to say. So, druid of the claw, your ravage damage reduced by eight percent. This is hilarious. No one ever used druid of the claw in pvp. In pve probably they did. I would imagine that they did, but I honestly couldn't tell you. So I don't know why this is getting reduced. It just is.

Speaker 1:

But balanced druid, sunfire is now learned at level 10 as a baseline and the following talents have been removed light of the sun, which was the solar beam one, and sunfire, which is obviously now baseline. Very simple, but nothing really has changed for balanced druid. Um, for feral druids and druid of the claw, though, it's not looking good, I'm not gonna lie. So for feral druids now, thrash is now baseline at level 10. Your brutal slash damage is increased by 10. This is at least good, and killer instinct no longer increases damage dealt by moonfire um cast with lunar inspiration. This is really poor um. I think with all of the different nerfs that feral droids are getting, you could have at least had them have a moonfire moderation modification to that damage. But you know it's a bit sad.

Speaker 1:

Um, for guardian druids, new talent, ursul's warding gain, magical damage reduction equal to 5, slash 10% of your damage reduction from armor. Very good, so 10% of your damage reduction. Okay. So what this means is, if you have 80% physical damage reduction, you will have 10% of that as magical damage. So you will have 8% magical damage reduction. Does that make sense this way? Iron bark no, iron fur actually has a magical damage component to it, not just a physical damage, which is really good. I think that's a very good buff.

Speaker 1:

Um reinvigoration has been updated. Fren uh, frenzied regen heals over half a second half additional one to two additional seconds, sorry, and cast redroof and regrowth on you at 100 200 effectiveness. That's really good. I quite like that. Um. Verdant heart is now learned at level 10. Mangle damage increased by 10 more damage increased or reduced by 8, sorry. Raise damage reduced by 8. Raise now replaces maul instead and layered main has been removed. So overall I would say your tankiness as a druid has gone up it like very substantially with them two like talents, but your damage and output has gone down with um, obviously, maul and raised being reduced, although your mangle has gone up. So it's kind of a like for like swap. But honestly this is a win for guardian druids at the moment, in my honest opinion, for restoration druids. You have improved nature's cure. It's now learned at level 10. Was a talent.

Speaker 1:

Your mastery, which is harmony effectiveness, increased by 30 percent, now reduces bonus with each additional heal over time effect. So this update to mastery harmony is intended to reward more heavily the first few heals over the time effects applied, um, the first few uh hots applied to the target. While tampering the scale at a large heal over time counts, this scaling will always stay and make it a bonus to have additional heal over time effects on the target. So what they're saying is if you want to put a very big heal over time effect, your biggest heal over time effect, you want to do that first. The only problem with that in pvp is if people are quick enough, they will dispel it. Okay. And what does this mean when they have like overgrowth? Because it puts all the hots on the target at once. So does that mean all of the hots are affected by the mastery? You know there's going to be a few questions that they need asking here, but we'll see how it plant, how it pans out. But essentially, if you're in pvp, dispel the like, the resto druids. It has to be done.

Speaker 1:

Um, tranquility channel time reduced to baseline. Five seconds was eight. The total healing is unchanged. This is is for PvP basis, I think, because you can take the talent where it makes you immune. So eight second immunity kind of is a bit depressing. Five seconds is fine, though.

Speaker 1:

Nature Swiftness now increases the healing of regrowth by 200%. Was 100%. That is a gigabuff, by the way, because you have two Nature Swiftnesses, which is very good. Flourish it can now cause the initial heal effect on affected allies, split evenly among them. Okay, not too bad, but I don't think people take flourish and all damage reduced by 20 percent. Just why? Just straight up why that's crazy. Um, the damage reduction keeps rest of druids physical or magical damage dealt equivalent to previous patches when selecting the circle of the wild or circle of the heavens talents.

Speaker 1:

We are making the change with the goal of moving rest of druids more towards utilizing either their damaging physical abilities or magic spells, instead of weaving between them both in order to reduce the damage rotation complexity. Okay, if it comes out to the same, fair enough, I'm completely fine with that. I think that that's very good. So overall, the winners for druid are definitely guardian druid. The rest of druid seems all, but we need to see how it plays out in practice.

Speaker 1:

In both PvE and PvP, boomy didn't really change. There's a few good talents that have made this. Boomy's actually gotten a lot better just via the neutral talents that have been moved or added or chopped and changed around. So Boomy's actually in the plus here. Feral druids are the big losers. I'm afraid they have lost quite a lot and in my honest opinion, they didn't really need to lose a lot, because it is a very high skill class or spec. In my honest opinion, one, one of the highest skilled in the game. I I do have to say that I tried playing it. It's so global, intensive, it is unreal, it really really is. Um. So I think feral droids are a bit shafted in this, but there isn't much you can do. We just gotta see how it plays out in my honest opinion.

Speaker 1:

But that is where I will end it for this episode. I only got through three. Okay, now I'm really trying to go through this as quickly as I can, but there is so much. I told you guys, there is so much. We have a Voka next and they've got an entire page. Oh my God, hunters are crazy. By the way, we'll go over Hunters next time. Hunters might be their own episode. Oh my God, my god, yeah, hunters are crazy. I that's because the hunters are getting a major rework. If I'm not mistaken, yeah, marksman hunters are getting a major rework, so I'll be, uh, talking to you guys about that next week, okay, and I will keep you guys here constantly going and updated on the patch throughout this weeks of the few weeks to come. But that is where I will end it for this episode.

Speaker 1:

Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there, as well as on the etsy shop multiple stuff going up, and ashbringer was literally just put up there like a few days ago, so would really appreciate people checking it out. I'm currently in the works of making a rock de la bow from classic. I'm really hoping that it turns out the way it does. Um, keep an eye out. It might pop up there within the next week or so, but thank you all very much once again and go. Eval a friend. Goodbye all. Thank you.