Right then, here’s the 1.05 patch notes. The big thing to note with these is that they are up on the test server, which means that they’re going to get some testing and possibly some tweaking before they go live. So love them or hate them, the sky has not fallen. If they turn out not to have the effect Mythic wanted on the test servers then there will be changes, these are not set in stone. If you have access to a test realm (ie. not in the EU) and are feeling sparky, go test and give feedback.
Having said that, we can certainly read through the patch notes and get an idea of the sorts of changes they want to make and how they see some of the classes and abilities at the moment.
A few bloggers have already summed up changes for classes they play: Regis discusses 1.05 and Warrior Priests, Syp discusses engineers, A Wall of Text talks over the non-class specific changes.
But because you can never have enough summaries, here’s mine!
Healers
Every healer has had their main HoT spell adjusted to do the same amount of healing as it does now, but spread over 24 seconds. So each tick will be ticking for less. This is a sizable healing nerf because the reason people have been getting such high healing numbers in scenarios is by HoTting up their whole team.
Healers have also had their damage adjusted upwards, which should help for soloing and make levelling much less painful.
I’m in two minds about these changes. Casting HoTs blindly on everyone is pretty dull, I much prefer keeping an eye on what’s going on around me and responding to that. On the other hand, dps is outdistancing healing in Tier 4 by quite a lot at the moment. No one thinks healers have too much survivability. So a patch where several classes get more damage and all healers get less healing could tip the balance even further away from support.
I’m hoping that Mythic plan to move towards more fun healing and away from the constant HoTs so we’ll see how these pan out on the test server. I’m very happy about the increased damage though. That was needed. There are also some bug fixes for various classes but that’s the main gist of the healing changes.
Damage Dealing
DoTs are being made more consistent which looks as though it means that most of them get a damage buff. The damage buff in most cases is to do with the spell getting more of an effect gear stats (ie. Int). But there are some spells that simply got a damage increase independent of gear.
All the abilities which reduced heals by more than 50% (affects Marauders and Witch Elves) now are being nerfed to 50% heal reductions.
Wizards and Sorceresses
The main nerfs here are:
- the fact that root now has a chance to break on damage, so no rooting people and then nuking them down.
- immunity on root which will leave these classes lower in survivability
- combustion is slower to build
- root now available at rank 12, not rank 10. (ie. not in Tier 1)
- HoTs ticking for less makes it harder for healers to keep these guys up when they’re nuking at full combustion
Other than that, they got a solid damage buff with the DoT improvements. Not quite what people were expecting.
Squig Herders, Engineers, White Lions, Maguses (Magi?)
Lots of ‘this ability now does more damage’ buffs. So more damage across the boards. It looks as though pets are being buffed up as well, at least in their damage capability.
Bow classes now get to autoattack on the run while in their skirmish mode.
Tanks
Poor Ironbreakers, their ability to build up Grudge is being nerfed quite severely. Were they doing too much damage in Tier 4? I don’t know but it seems Mythic thinks so. On the bright side (is there one?) they can now use hammers.
All tanks get their root breaking ability at rank 12.
Guard now only works on players within the tank’s group.
Non Class Specific
- Ability to set rally points in any warcamp
- root effects can’t be stacked, and after you get rooted you have a 5s immunity to being rerooted
- less likely to get the same scenario twice in a row
- movement reductions etc will no longer stack
- guaranteed to get 1 gold loot bag on every keep take PQ
- everyone needs ward gear to fight encounter bosses, not just tanks
Overall
I see a lot more damage buffs across the board, and an across the board healing nerf to go with it. I hope they test this good and proper because it’s quite harsh as a healer in Tier 4 as it is and this isn’t going to help.
I feel bad for the Ironbreakers too.
Filed under: healers, melee dps, Mythic, patch notes, ranged dps, tanks | Tagged: dps, healing, ironbreaker nerf, patch 1.05, ward gear |
Book of Grudges 
One of the other effects of having an HoT last over longer is that if tactics proc off each tick then there are more ticks, but overall.. it’s an interesting move. DPS seems stronger, tanks and healers a little weaker at their main roles.
I hope 1.1 has a lot of stuff in store. I need to re-sub today ;p
It’s only the grudge from Oathfriend that’s being nerfed, so I think we’ll cope. At the moment we seem to have either 0 grudge or 100 grudge, so the choice to keep it or spend it isn’t particularly difficult.
I’m looking forward to seeing how all this works out in play. I guess Mythic thought that big instant cast heals over time were making people in general, not necessarily healers, a bit too hard to kill.
For me, the most important change is to scenarios, less chance of Serpents Passage can only be a good thing.
…also. Ironbreakers being able to use hammers pretty much confirms that Hammerers are dead.
I saw that Kazok and almost wrote a new post about the Hammerer being dead and gone.
Thank god Witch Elves have been buffed. This one time I was in a scenario, I got jumped by a Witch Elf and I didn’t die. I mean, OK, the Witch Elf was at 50% health, and three healers all constantly healed me, a tank knocked the Witch Elf away after a couple of seconds, and every DPS class then focused to take them out, but it obviously showed how underpowered they are.
I kid, of course, and Destruction are going to be going just as nuts over Bright Wizards. Honestly, damage buffs and healing reductions all round? Didn’t see that coming, be interesting to see how it pans out…
The general thoughts on the Warrior Priests forum on Warhammer Alliance is that Mythic wanted to reduce the amount of hots being spammed onto friendly targets.
If that was the case why not reduce the number of heal spells that can affect a friendly, rather than reduce hots?
There is also an excellent quote from Mark Jacobs on the VN board saying that there are too many salvation specced warrior priests and they are looking to address that. Could be in for radically less healing and much more damage in future.
But I wonder if these people have ever actually played a warrior priest attempting to fight on the front lines in tier 4. It goes something like this:
You are disarmed!
You are disarmed!
You are disarmed!
You are disabled!
You are disabled!
You are disabled!
You are silenced!
You are silenced!
You are silenced!
You are dead.
I’m not too worried about the IB changes…
As Kazok rightly says, its only Oathfriend receiving a nerf and its not a bad one at that.
To sweeten the deal the CD has been reduced so all it means is more active switching of Oathfriend to maintain grudge which we should be doing anyway.
[…] aren’t a lot of defensive buffs present in this patch to compensate. Not to mention that healing’s taken a bit of a hit (although longer HOT durations will allow healers to spread the healing joy a bit further without […]
@ Turamber
I’m a medium armoured class without healing and find that only tanks can be on the front lines, when we play together you stand next to me and i’ll fetch you a nice juicy silenced sorceress to beat on.
Actually surprised that fetch didn’t get a nerf to be honest.
That would be nice Fhel 🙂 I seem to only use a few commands in tier 4 scenarios:
Group Heal
Group HoT
Group Shield
Plus morale abilities when they fancy working.
Hopefully as I get a bit tougher I’ll be able to do a bit of melee without folding in three seconds. Not that there are really any changes in this patch to make me anymore of a frontline fighter. Hohum.
Tur, I think you are suffering a bit at the moment from being at the bottom of the tier. Getting better armour will help a lot. But that’s not to say that melee WPs don’t have issues. So it’s cool that Mythic are especially looking at that.
Yah, I think you can write off that the Hammerer is dead. This is a pretty clear sign of it. But hopefully they’ll introduce something better in it’s place. To be honest, the Hammerer seemed a tad lame to me. The Dwarves have to have the Slayer. Even if it stops making sense about how they resurrect after every death.
The changes to the HOT are a nerf, no question. No additional ticks, and the amount healed per tick stays the same. So it’s just the same old heal, just a heck of a lot slower. Meh, I’m not happy. My DoK was annoying to play as it is, this just makes it even more irritating.
The bit about the hammer for Ironbreakers was the single most disappointing line in the entire patch for me.
I despise the idea of Slayers as a playable class, and their increasingly likely introduction is the first thing that has cast a pall over my enjoyment of the game.
I can find a workaround to a botched Grudge mechanic, should tha that happen. There is no workaround to 100,000 idiots all whining they aren’t as powerful as Gotrek and can’t get the Axe of Grimnir.
Bregel, I don’t think that’s going to be the main problem. I mean, I’m not as powerful as Teclis and you don’t hear me whi… ok, I do whine. Good point.
I think the lore thing for slayers is more ‘how come you guys are still alive if you are on a quest to get killed by stuff’. But it could be got around, it could be there are some oaths involved because of it being a time of war.
Heh, the age of reckoning has everyone unable to permanently die (thanks crazy chaos stuff) so it’s really really frustrating for Slayers 😉
Try as they might they can’t seem to stay dead…
I didn’t see any mention of a nerf to or removal of the DoK tactic that gives a 100% heal debuff on crits, nor the Rune priest equivalent that gives the 100% heal debuff on spell crits. I’m hoping they didn’t overlook them since they did manage to go after the marauder and WE debuffs.
As an engineer, I won’t say “no” to more grenade damage. I wish they would give Strafing Run a look, as it typically seems to hit only the person I have targeted, and it’s supposed to be a line-based area effect. My ironbreaker alt won’t be unhappy about being able to use hammers – one handed axes are quite difficult to find, for some reason. I really don’t know how this will affect my warrior priest – the HoT spells won’t work as well, but a damage buff will result in more healing through melee.
[…] All other DoTs in the game are being rebalanced to provide a slight increase in damage due to stat contribution. This increase in damage combined with the reduction in healing from the HoTs will make life as a healer a little more difficult as already mentioned by Regis and Spinks. […]
[…] of changes they want to make and how they see some of the classes and abilities at the moment. What will patch 1.05 mean for you Book of Grudges If you have any questions, comments or problems please send me a Personal Message, […]
[…] What will patch 1.05 mean for you Right then, here’s the 1.05 patch notes. The big thing to note with these is that they are up on the test server, […] […]
[…] aren’t a lot of defensive buffs present in this patch to compensate. Not to mention that healing’s taken a bit of a hit (although longer HOT durations will allow healers to spread the healing joy a bit further without […]