Blizzard
Hey all,
We’re making some significant changes to many specializations in Patch 7.1.5, and this has understandably resulted in some concern and confusion, particularly from players who may be less familiar with our PTR and development processes. So, we’d like to take a moment to explain what’s going on and how it pertains to what you’re seeing (or haven’t yet seen) on the PTR.
First, it’s important to understand the role that the PTR plays in our overall development process. At this stage, Patch 7.1.5 is still a work in progress. The PTR is only a snapshot of where we happened to be in development at the time the build was created. There are a lot of people working on WoW, and a lot of projects in various stages of completion. As a result, especially at this early stage of the PTR cycle, you’re going to see a lot of incomplete or unfinished work. Quite often, when something you see doesn’t make sense, it’s simply because we hadn’t finished making it make sense before the latest build was created.
Looking specifically at class design, the changes you’re seeing so far are focused primarily on how each spec plays in terms of mechanics, rotations, ability sets, talent options, etc. As some of these changes are fairly significant, we haven’t been making many adjustments to overall performance just yet. We need each spec to be completely functional before we can start tuning its effectiveness.
Right now, the build currently live on the 7.1.5 PTR is only about halfway through those mechanical changes. We’ve been continuing to work hard on getting those finished, and the next build should give you a clearer picture of what’s happening with your spec. We’ll try to share as much insight as we can into what we’re doing at that point.