20 October 2009

The coma issue

You have to make some of assumptions when you start a blog. One is that there are a couple of people out there, in the ether, who are interested in what you have to say. The other is that they will occasionally, by hook or crook, find their way to your blog to read it. This poses a problem when you come to write about something that the entire world already knows and is weeks ahead of you on — like patch 3.3. But I'm not one to let a little problem like lack of readers get in the way of a good post. So, to all my visitors who have recently emerged from long-term comas, wipe the sleep from your eyes, have a long hard stretch, and settle down for the most explosive news you've read since you woke up.
 
Here's a quick summary in case you're at risk of a relapse:
  • Pre-coma: mind flay's range is fine, your glyphs are fine, stats are fine, dps is totally fine, stop moaning
  • Post-coma: mind flay's range is stupid, you have no glyphs, need a bit of a stat boost, and you've really got to pick up the dps, you slackers
If you're still with me, here's a more comprehensive list of the changes currently on the table. Of course, it's just a test realm, nothing's set in stone yet, but it's joy that Blizzard is even willing to give them a road test.
  • Improved devouring plague now deals 10/20/30% of its total periodic effect instantly, up from 5/10/15%.
  • Mind flay range has been increased to 30 yards, up from 20.
  • Shadowform now also causes devouring plague, shadow word: pain and vampiric touch to benefit from haste, reducing the tick intervals and overall duration of the spells. It has also had its mana cost reduced.
  • Vampiric embrace now provides a 30-minute buff that cannot be dispelled, instead of a target debuff, but only generates healing for single-target shadow damage spells.
  • Glyph of mind flay now increases the damage done by Mind Flay by 10 per cent when the target is afflicted with shadow word: pain.
  • Glyph of shadow word: pain now causes the spell to restore 1 per cent of the priest's base mana each tick.
  • Glyph of shadow now causes non-periodic spell critical strikes to increase spell power by 30%, up from 10%, of the priest's total spirit for 10 seconds.
I really have no idea where this came from. People not in a coma may well be nursing whiplash right now at the speed of Blizzard's turnaround from a position of complete equanimity just three weeks ago ("Many shadow priests think their dps is unacceptably low but we don't agree.")
 
In fact, everything about this patch is a dps increase. I've no idea by how much, and wouldn't care if they turned out to be pretty minor. Because, more importantly than buffing our damage, these changes are helping to level the playing field for shadow, and in so doing, making it much easier for both players and Blizzard to evaluate shadow damage and balance it more effectively within the spectrum of dps classes. And really, that's all we ever wanted, right?
 
It's early days yet, but bravo to Blizzard for having the courage to test these changes so soon after dismissing them. The haste change is obviously the most significant, but personally I'm most delirious about the mind flay range. It's been a long time coming...

11 comments:

Avonar said...

Just want to thank you for summarizing these things on your site. I read the patch notes, I think "yay!" and then I read your site and think "double yay!" :P Just need some context, occasionally. Thanks!

crysana said...

I wonder how many people are left playing shadow priests - Ive respecced disc and my DK is now more geared than my priest. Ive hardly seen any spriest's in Dal - not that there were that many to begin with. Maybe the numbers finally got so low that blizz actually noticed...

Also I find it sad that they can say spriest dmg is ok, then do a massive about face like this... Everyone knew it wasn't, and now its proof that they knew to. Oh well, their game, they can do what they want I guess...

Anonymous said...

will be back wowing very soon. Jo x

DanVanGogh said...

I just want to let you know your blog is soooo funny. I just started my own shadow priest blog at http://plaguepriest.blogspot.com/

I was going to see if you would let me put a link on my blog to yours so people can come here and get more information. Mine is still bare bones at the moment. Keep up the nice blogging dark brother.

Merlot said...

Dan, I hope you make it back to check this follow up. I saw your blog a while ago (google alerts are the biz!) and went to leave a welcome on your first post. Unfortunately, the form isn't working properly (a missing scroll bar makes it impossible to varify the comment). I don't know if this is an issue with the code or just a bug with my browser, but it's not a problem I experience on other blogger blogs with the same varification system, so I'm guessing there something weird going on. I was going to write and mention it to you, but there's no contact details on your blog! Have a look into it. If you're getting no comments, this could be why :)

DanVanGogh said...

lol, thats alittle funny, but thanks for the information I'll get to work on it....

DanVanGogh said...

IDK, should be working now.Click on the number above the post...Havent figured out a better way for comments to come up yet. Thanks for the input

DanVanGogh said...

blowing up your blog today..lol but I understad what you mean now. yeah strange that there isn't a scroll bar to go down. You can get past it by hold click like your going to copy a bunch of text and then you can get down to put in the code...okay last comment on "your blog" today, i swear!!!

DanVanGogh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DanVanGogh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
DanVanGogh said...

arg I put it below the comment on mine thx