Ghostcrawler: Team May Change Haste for DoT, HoTs

Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street just made a post on the officials forums stating that Blizzard is "trying to make haste a slightly more attractive stat for classes that utilize a lot of damage or healing over time spells," including Shadow priests, warlocks and Resto druids. The team may make specific HoT and DoT spells tick faster with more Haste, which would mean more damage or heals over time. The trade-off would be that you'd have to refresh the spells more often.

In order to test out the concept first, the team is planning to introduce it through glyphs. You may see new glyphs for Shadow Word: Pain, Corruption and Rejuvenation pop onto the PTR for patch 3.3 "that would allow these spells to tick faster with the more haste you have." Ghostcrawler emphasizes, however, that these are not promises. You may see some or all of the glyphs on the PTR, or you may not. He just wanted to get the idea out there so players can supply feedback.

You can read the full post after the jump. Although it may not be implemented, what do you think of the concept?

We are trying to make haste a slightly more attractive stat for classes that utilize a lot of damage or healing over time spells, specifically Shadow priests, warlocks (though especially Affliction) and Resto druids. We realize other classes use hots and dots too, but I think we can all agree that it's a bigger problem for the ones I mentioned.

I'm going to share with you an idea that the class and item designers came up with for 3.3. This is a work in progress so it's possible we'll end up going a different way after we see how it plays. However I also wanted to explain our logic here in case it wasn't obvious.

We have new tech that will allow specific hots and dots to tick faster -- the time between ticks would decrease. This means more damage or healing per time but also having to refresh those spells more often. Since there is a trade-off, we're not sure the change is a no-brainer, especially in the healing case.

Because of this, we are planning on introducing the concept through glyphs. Glyphs represent a great test bed for new ideas because they are easier to change (and easier on the players when we do change them) compared to core spell functions or even talents. If we like the way it feels and players like the way it feels and the glyphs prove popular or fun, then this may be the kind of thing that shifts from glyphs over time -- not unlike the way some favorite set bonuses eventually become talents.

For 3.3 we are talking about introducing three new glyphs for Shadow Word: Pain, Corruption and Rejuvenation that would allow these spells to tick faster with the more haste you have. There are glyphs of Corruption and Rejuv already, and we're not sure how we're going to resolve those yet. For Shadow Word: Pain, we are likely to rename the current glyph to Glyph of Mind Flay, remove the old Glyph of Mind Flay, and increase Mind Flay by 10 yards in the base spell.

Again, these are not promises (nor ponies). For a variety of reasons, you may see these changes on the PTR or you may not. If you do see any or all of the three glyphs implemented however, we wanted you to have some idea of what we were trying to do. Feedback is certainly appreciated, especially if you get to try them out.

Comments

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RE: interesting
# Oct 08 2009 at 6:54 AM Rating: Excellent
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197 posts
ekaterinodar wrote:
Definitely an interesting idea. I'd like to hear back on the data. Although I think this may cause some problems with rotations and mana having to recast more (especially on spells with cooldowns). Although they did mention specific spells.

Rather than reduce the overall length I'd like to see them reduce the time between ticks. Thus adding more ticks to the full duration of the D/HoT

Can't hurt for them to try it out.

I like ekaterinodar's idea. So it would look something like this:

Unhasted DOT (X=Ticks -=Time |=Recast)
X-----X-----X-----X-----X | X-----X------X-----X-----X | X-----X------X-----X-----X

Hasted DOT: Blizzard Proposed
X---X---X---X---X | X---X---X---X---X | X---X---X---X---X | X---X---X---X---X

Hasted DOT: More Ticks per Duration
X---X---X---X---X---X---X | X---X---X---X---X---X---X | X---X---X---X---X---X---X

This would provide the same extra throughput but it would also make the spell more mana efficient and not force you to recalculate your rotation with more haste. The only problem is if this made those spells too overpowered.

Edited, Oct 8th 2009 10:59am by HunterJones
decent idea, for dps
# Oct 07 2009 at 8:08 PM Rating: Good
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220 posts
I can see this balancing out okay for DPS classes I guess. As a resto druid though, it's not a change that I would like for HoT spells. Much of the time my HoTs are simply overheal...it's nice to have them ticking for a longer period of time so that a refresh isn't necessary when "new" damage comes in. I'd have to give it a try before I can be much of a judge though!
decent idea, for dps
# Oct 08 2009 at 3:12 AM Rating: Decent
Quote:
I can see this balancing out okay for DPS classes I guess. As a resto druid though, it's not a change that I would like for HoT spells. Much of the time my HoTs are simply overheal...it's nice to have them ticking for a longer period of time so that a refresh isn't necessary when "new" damage comes in. I'd have to give it a try before I can be much of a judge though!
Yeah this is reason why I'm not sure about this shorter ticking HoTs as I see as long as possible ticking HoTs like extra life insurance that buy more time other healers to drop in heals.

I played Resto Druid long time during TBC and I always saw my self as support healer that buy more time and provide extra life insurance with long ticking hots.
interesting
# Oct 07 2009 at 4:48 PM Rating: Good
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1,882 posts
Definitely an interesting idea. I'd like to hear back on the data. Although I think this may cause some problems with rotations and mana having to recast more (especially on spells with cooldowns). Although they did mention specific spells.

Rather than reduce the overall length I'd like to see them reduce the time between ticks. Thus adding more ticks to the full duration of the D/HoT

Can't hurt for them to try it out.
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