Dev Q&A: Patch 7.1.5

“A worthy effort… but futile.”
Mannoroth

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Dev Q&A: Patch 7.1.5

Today’s date is: Dec. 8, 2016

WatcherDev and Lore had their terrific Patch 7.1.5 presentation yesterday. I enjoyed watching it. Watcher isn’t nearly as smug as he was when Legion launched. Still, there is little doubt that there is sincere effort on their part to work on classes and balance.

The thing that struck me while watching was that there we several mentions of AoE; be in in class design (warlocks perhaps) or legendaries. The comment was a bit like, “but it might be really good for AoE”.

What AoE?

AoE means Area of Effect. For players this means spells that handle 4+ mobs at once. Each DPS player has a Major Trait that supports AoE in their Artifact.

There is no AoE designed into the encounters.

As of the dungeons that I’ve seen and Emerald Nightmare and Trial of Valor — every boss is single target. There is zero mechanic where the Off Tank gathers up mobs for us to kill. That adds that we DO see are single-target, mow them down, one at a time.

Quibble and say trash and I can agree on that minor point. Mythic Plus is about speed and those AoE groups of trash need to go down fast. But, no one is going to bring you as a Trash Specialist!

How this common and typical design choice has been not included in the game is a mystery. Each raid normally has a few boss encounters where the AoE spells are needed and that class can shine! Tectus or Mannoroth or Hellfire Assault all are fights that favor on some level the AoE spells.

This is where, obviously, the classes that we don’t see in raids very often; like Beast Mastery Hunters are being neglected. Cleaving is exciting (and on and on).

The interview was nice. The boys did a nice job answering their questions and felt quite candid. Still, there were several times when AoE was the example and I wanted to say, “Wait … there is no AoE”.