6.1 changes

[Luciandk]

http://www.wowhead.com/news=245954/6-1-ptr-build-19533-profession-improvements-heirloom-mount-blackrock-foundry-tes#battle-pet-abilities

Seems all abilities with varied damage got them normalized?

[Vetteranger]

That's odd considering they were so proud of their algorithm that concentrated ranged damage towards the high and low ends of the range, largely avoiding average damage. Now they are changing those attacks to only do average damage. LOL

Thanks for the link.

[Saasan]

Well that will change things. Should make it a LOT easier to calculate damage. I'm not much into PvP, but I think you or Poofah might have some good insights into how this will effect PvP. More predictable outcomes, less crit dependant?

[Luciandk]

My gut feeling is that +crit made variable damage too good. As crit forces a high roll, which then is given crit bonus damage.

[Kpb321]

Has anyone logged into PTR and confirmed this yet?

The +Hit +Crit being able to guarantee a high roll was pretty power but also pretty limited scenarios where that applied given the relatively small number of buffs that give crit or hit.

[Poofah]

LOL

My thoughts too.

More predictable outcomes, less crit dependant?

Yes, but more predictable is actually bad in this case. For example if your guy has 1400 health and I have 260 power then I KO you in 5 turns with Punch. But if I have 253 power then it takes 6 turns. Whereas before this small difference in power translated into a small difference in time-til-KO, now there will be very strict cutoffs, and this will create plateaus in power/health values the same way we have for speed. For example there is not a lot of value in going from 260 to 289 power, because anything between 1401 and 1675 health is a 6-turn KO either way. 289 power only becomes valuable if the opponent has between 1676-1850 health (because with 260 power this will take 7 turns; only 6 with 289 power). But this is a much smaller subset of possible opponents (again, using Punch only).

This is made even worse because instead of being balanced, these abilities almost all kept their higher-than-normal damage. The risk of rolling low used to offset the higher damage, but now we have Punch at 20 base dmg versus Crush at 22 base dmg, for example, so Crush is strictly better. This difference is not small. For example if I have 260 power I do 1400 dmg in 5 turns with Punch; if I have Crush then I do 1540 dmg in 5 turns. This is equivalent to half of your stats from breed choice. So for example a HH/SS would do the same dmg over 5 turns with Crush (1540) that a HP or PS would do with Punch (1545). So we have a situation where careful selection of spammable attack is arguably more important than careful selection of breed.

[Luciandk]

Might be worth tweeting lecraft and quizzing him about this change.

[Saasan]

This is made even worse because instead of being balanced, these abilities almost all kept their higher-than-normal damage. The risk of rolling low used to offset the higher damage, but now we have Punch at 20 base dmg versus Crush at 22 base dmg, for example, so Crush is strictly better. This difference is not small. For example if I have 260 power I do 1400 dmg in 5 turns with Punch; if I have Crush then I do 1540 dmg in 5 turns. This is equivalent to half of your stats from breed choice. So for example a HH/SS would do the same dmg over 5 turns with Crush (1540) that a HP or PS would do with Punch (1545). So we have a situation where careful selection of spammable attack is arguably more important than careful selection of breed.

Thank you, Poofah, that explanation really helps me.

[Quintessence]

Has anyone logged into PTR and confirmed this yet?

It doesn't look like the changes have hit the PTR yet.

Breath's tooltip still shows 303 to 454 Dragonkin damage. Unsure about the actual damage the abilities do and if that's changed (didn't have time to check), but tooltips look like they're unchanged on the PTR. Many (if not all) of the abilities still have damage ranges listed.

[Luciandk]

Hrm, could be this is simply bad datamining from Wowhead's side.

[Vek]

Tooltip Changes?

[Ril]

i really hope they don't go through with this change. what's the point of having 20 different spells that do exactly the same, like bite, claw, punch etc? the hit/miss change they made with WoD was a good one imho, there was too much frustration involved with it, but they should leave some rngness or the whole thing becomes boring. it will be all about min-maxing and too predictable.

[Steamanubis]

What bugs me is that all of the "up high" abilities (Devastate, Lift-Off, Launch, Meteor Strike, Proto-Strike) don't do ANY damage now. What's the point of having them if there's no pay-off?

[Beast_mast0r]

It will make HP more valuable than it is now, thus making breeds more even.

[Vetteranger]

What bugs me is that all of the "up high" abilities (Devastate, Lift-Off, Launch, Meteor Strike, Proto-Strike) don't do ANY damage now. What's the point of having them if there's no pay-off?

I would strongly suppose that 0 damage from Lift Off is a mistake in replication (of some sort). Notice that Proto-Strke has a damage number. It simply wouldn't make any sense to retain damage from Proto-Strike and eliminate it from Lift Off. It would also so severely screw up many people's favorite teams that I predict some would just ditch pet battles entirely.

I'd hate to see them endlessly screw around with pet battles until they completely corrupt them they way they have done with some player classes ... or start to play favorites like they've done, for example, with Monks - whose every piece of chest armor should come emblazoned with a big red "S" on it.

[Jerebear]

new forum/thread for PTR info and discussion:
http://www.warcraftpets.com/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=13095

[3wd]

I stopped playing in the late MOP era and just came back recently in MOP.

Overall, I think get rid of the hit rate is a mistake for PVP pet battling.

There is no more excitement for pet PVP.

Yeah people hate RNG but when everything becomes so predictable, basically its about what kind of matchup you will be drawing in a PVP fight and what kind of dream team cookie cutter people will tend to use in the long run.

That actually makes the whole PVP thing more than predictable and boring than ever.

Maybe they just don't care anymore about pet PVP. It's an old idea and they want your interest and efforts to be on the new garrison thing.

Time to move on I guess.

[Luciandk]

Any word if the normalization of variable damage was a real thing or just bad datamining?

[Drudatz]

Sorry if Im the party pooper but I would be VERY glad if this goes life cause atm theres is WAY TO MUCH rng in pvp pet battles...
and noone can tell me its good when the anubis hits a drake for 190-210dmg with a strong ability....

[Luciandk]

Still would like a reply. Anyone know if this normalization of variable damage went through or not?