Healing by Shear Force: Another Vengeance Update

[wowheadrename] There was a fairly significant rotational shakeup in the last alpha build. And a couple minor things. In summary, the important changes are:

  • Shear no longer reduces the cooldown of Felblade. Instead, it is the primary Pain generator.
  • Felblade is now a talent, which acts as a cap closer and Pain generator.
  • Immolation Aura now generates Pain over time.
  • Soul Cleave now heals you for a baseline 10% and also heals you with nearby Shattered Souls, which appear on the ground and heal for 25% of your health.

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Initial Thoughts on Vengeance

[wowheadrename] There’s something poetic about contemplating vengeance.

I’ve spent the weekend playing with Vengeance on the Legion alpha, and I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re great. If I had to draw a comparison, I’d say it’s similar to the protection warrior. They generate resources similarly (through damage taken and rotational abilities) and spend them on similar active mitigation. They both have a cheap, maintenancy ability (Shield Block, Demon Spikes) and a expensive powerful ability (Ignore Pain and Soul Cleave). The Vengeance resource, Pain, is the same as Rage, except it doesn’t decay (yet). After that, they two specs are very different.

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More Wild Guesses about Vengeance Active Mitigation

[wowheadrename] Just like before, but with more Pain!

Big changes from the December build:

  • Pain definitely comes from Felblade. I also suspect it will come from taking damage, similar to Rage.
  • Wording changes suggest that Soul Fragments no longer spawn on the ground (like a demon-flavored Ox Orb), and instead automatically heal you for 5% hp.
  • Most Vengeance talents are up! But I’m not going to cover them in this blog post.

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Alpha First Impressions, New Brewmaster Visuals

So far in the Alpha I’ve only done quests up to level 91. I felt like that level went really fast. Questing as a Brewmaster was actually reasonable, thanks to our damage no longer relying on Vengeance. I haven’t done the dungeon yet, but hopefully will soon.

Questing was fun and reminded me a bit of Guild Wars 2, where you keep getting distracted by rares, events, eye-catching “vignettes”, and bonus objectives. It’s still pretty guided so you don’t get easily overwhelmed.

I unlocked my Garrison but I don’t really “get it”. It’s something I’ll be more interested in when it’s live, but right now I’d rather play with class changes.

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