BW: Current state

[lumpi33]

Hello there,

so, I dusted off my old BW to mess around a bit. He is close to BIS gear so not a new char at all. Around 7% less chance to be disrupted, max int, 36% base crit with potions.

I've been running different specs to see how he is currently doing. The result was pretty much from "meh, this is not good" to "omg, this is awful".

Their AOE spec is kind of fun to play but the damage just isn't there. Wild Fire procs, Spreading Flames and Detonate do pathetic damage. They tick around 100ish, IF they are not getting disrupted, blocked or absorbed. That's wild when you think about hots ticking for 5xx on crit.

One thing that was standing out on the AOE spec was really the Discordant Turbulence and Shield channel backdrafts. They did almost the same damage back to me than I did to them, not even counting the 750 damage procs I get from my mechanic when at 100 power. It's pretty common to hurt yourself for 750 while the target just disrupts and getting 0 damage. What the hell?!

This doesn't seem right to be honest. It is a high risk, very squishy damage class and there are so freaking many disrupts. It is super hard to get any meaningful damage done to tanks or healers that have very high disrupts. The most insane situation was a defensive BGs running their disrupt tactic. They were basically immune to my damage.

Another thing that was very annoying was the Tzeentch Reflection ability from the chosens. Every time I was in a good spot to start casting AOEs I got muted by this ability. That's crazy when you think about it. They are not even targetting me and I'm still getting muted, backdrafts from their auras and hurt myself from the mechanic. Let alone all the blocks and disrupts. And when it finally hits it barely does any damage. Crazy.

The spec that worked best for me was deep mid tree down to kd and right tree to funnel power. Then there is at least some single target pressure but AOE is pretty much gone and the disrupt problem is still there.

Overall I think that BWs are in an awful state right now. With Deft Defender people are having such an easy way to pump their disrupt/dodge rate while I'm as BW have pretty much nothing to counter that. Let alone the M1 some have that make them completely immune to my damage. Let alone the bad escape mechanics BWs have. Where is my ability to become immune to their damage? Where is my ability to escape like they do?

There is so much wrong about BWs right now. Deft Defender too cheap, no renown to counter Deft Defender, strong passive auras / strong passive tactics / shield channels from tanks, m1 immunity from mdps, balanced around 100 power play with a slow ramp up where the damage below is pathetic, huge self hurting mechanic other classes that do the same or better damage don't have, worst escapes, super squishy, no snares beside the withering heat where you have to stand still, no good aoe moral like mdps have, no immunity m1 to melees like melees have for rdps, no finisher like SH/SW/maras have against low health targets, cleanseable damage (dots), no aoe detaunt, disrupts/blocks/backdrafts/mutes all the time... painful...

Even ignoring all the weaknesses... The disrupt systems seems very broken for BWs right now...

Right now it is just not worth playing BW. At least from my point of view. It is in an awful state. What do you think about it?

[georgehabadasher]

Yeah, the stat standardization giving healers tons of disrupt, the healer rebalance granting extra cleansing to rp/zeal and the strikethrough cap change have really hit bw/sorc hard. And that’s after their mechanic got nerfed because of procs. Both classes are in a pretty rough place. But at least you’re not a slayer!

[Akilinus]

Skill issue. Slot flashfire, few understand this.